


Unbreakable

by lifeofsnark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU- Canon Divergent, Cunnilingus, Essentially this is, Everyone is Bisexual, F/F, F/M, Honestly I won't be offended if you skip to Chapter 3, Liberal use of 'good girl', Light Dom/sub, Made up mythology, Minor Oberyn/Others, Minor Sansa/Other, More than 10k of smut, Multi, Oberyn lived, Oral Sex, Past Ramsay Bolton/Sansa Stark - Freeform, Praise Kink, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Really cute dancing scene, SANSA GOES TO DORNE AND FINALLY TAKES CONTROL OF HER SEXUALITY, Sansa gets a UTI, Sansa makes it to Dorne in Chapter 3, Sex gods Ellaria and Oberyn, She is a mere mortal, So much cunnilingus, Threesome - F/F/M, dildo use, p in v, references to past rape/non-con, sensual dom Oberyn, tbh this is pretty vanilla, that's pretty much it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-08-07 15:28:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16411094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/lifeofsnark
Summary: Canon-verse AU.Sansa jumps from Winterfell's walls alone, sure that she'll die before she can escape the North. Instead she makes it to White Harbor, and from there she sails to Dorne, for Dornishmen are likely the only ones in Westeros who will not immediately return her to the Lannisters or to the Boltons. Once in Dorne Sansa realizes that there are some places on earth where women are free: free to come and go, free to learn new skills, and free to take lovers whenever and however they please.~~~“I’m not Dornish,” said Sansa sadly.“And yet here you sit,” said Oberyn, his eyes focused on her. “Unbowed, unbent-”“-And only a little bit broken,” said Sansa, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.“Unbreakable,” said Oberyn softly.





	1. The North Remembers

Sansa stood in her too-thin dress and watched sparks fall from the anvil to sizzle in the early-autumn snow. As a child it had been Arya who was fascinated by the smith and the fletcher and the huntsmen. Now… now Sansa enjoyed her time outside in keep. She enjoyed the cold, stinging air, for it reminded her that she was still alive. She enjoyed being out in public for usually- but not always- Ramsay would leave her alone in the presence of others. 

 

She had a small book in her lap- prayers to the Old Gods, for Ramsay found it funny. He enjoyed thinking that she prayed for deliverance from him. Sometimes, when he had her bent over her parents’ old bed, the bed where she’d been born, he’d make her pray out loud for safety and forgiveness as he worked in her, desperately hoping to plant his seed inside where it would grow. 

 

That would not happen. Sansa would not let it happen. 

 

So today, as the afternoon light grew ever shorter, Sansa pretended to sit in the yard of her childhood home and pray while really she watched the smith. He was turning out swords, for of course he was. No one would allow Ramsay to remain in power uncontested forever: after all, the North remembers. Sansa only hoped that they would remember sooner than later. 

 

Sparks flew again as the smith hammered the red-hot iron, forcing into the shape he willed. Every few minutes it would be reheated in the forge, and, when he was done and declared the blade sturdy enough, he would cool it in a barrel of snowmelt next to the anvil. 

 

Sometimes the blade shattered in the water, the iron too impure or the blade cooled too quickly. Sometimes, though more rarely, the metal would splinter under the smith’s hammer, the red-hot explosion of a dying star. 

 

Sansa thought women had more in common with swords than she’d originally concluded: they were all hammed by this life, beaten down with unwanted husbands and solitude and the terrors of the birthing bed. No woman went though this life unscathed. 

 

Some women went mad with it, mad like Malora Hightower or Lysa Arryn. Others drew into themselves, choosing to live in the safety of their own minds or their own keeps, minimizing the blows that could rain down on them. Some other women- at least a few- turned to steel.  

 

As Ramsa called Sansa back into the keep, she wondered which kind of sword she’d be. 

 

She found out soon enough- she was all of them and none, for Ramsay had found her stash of moon tea. She’d hidden it away, hidden it where she thought he’d never look: inside the little figurine of the Stranger that resided in the small shine of the Seven that Ned had built for his sad southern wife. The Maid had felt too obvious, as had the Mother… but the Stranger- well, she figured she would have the tea or death. Whichever came first. 

 

Ramsay was seated at the center of the high table in the great hall when she entered. His retainers were around him, and here and there on the now-charred reeds lay his dogs: always too thin, always too watchful. 

 

He smiled at her, his eyes sparkling and manic, his dimples deep and boyish. “Wife!” he said, opening his arms wide. “You joined us!”

 

Sansa nodded her head, kept her eyes focused on the floor before Ramsay’s feet. “You called for me, my lord?”

 

He liked to be ‘my lorded’. The bastard who no one had loved now lorded his status over all. Sansa had wondered, just for a moment, if Jon would have enjoyed power such as this, but immediately wiped the thought away. Jon wouldn’t have wanted any of this. He’d only ever wanted a family, and she and Catelyn had conspired to keep him from it.

 

“Guess what I found today?” Ramsay asked, slouching back in his chair. 

 

Sansa knew running would do her no good. “What did you find?” she asked, her voice even and soft. 

 

“Guess!” said Ramsay quickly, that smile still in place. He sounded like a child too excited to contain some wonderful, grand secret. 

 

“Your dog had puppies, perhaps?” asked Sansa. If he was to make her speak, she would speak of nice things. 

 

“No!” said Ramsay. 

  
“More coin?” asked Sansa, keeping her hands clasped in front of her. 

 

“Wrong again,” said Ramsay, and Sansa could hear the pleasure in his voice. 

 

“I  give up, my lord,” said Sansa, and she startled when Ramsay stood so quickly that the chair tumbled over behind him. 

 

He was in front of her then, his face inches from her own, and she could smell his breakfast ale on his breath. “You give up?” he asked. “Oh! So you do know what I found!”

 

His hand shot into his pocket and returned to dangle something in Sansa’s peripheral vision. She wouldn’t turn to look at it. She wouldn’t take her eyes off her supposed-to-be husband. 

 

“Moon tea,” he whispered, so softly that only Sansa would be able to hear it. “Moon tea, hiding in a shrine.”

 

“Did you know what this was?” he asked, stepping back and letting his men in on the conversation again. “Did you put it there?”

 

“I know nothing, my lord,” said Sansa, knowing her voice was even and face placid, an untouched and frozen lake. “It is bad luck to manhandle the gods, even such small versions.”

 

“Ah yes,” said Ramsay, “And you are so known for piety. Even here in the North we heard how Sansa Stark spent her time hiding in the shrines and gardens of Kings Landing.”

 

Sansa said nothing. 

 

“Did you know this was there?” he asked again.

 

“No,” said Sansa. 

 

“I’d forgive you,” said Ramsay, his voice gone sweet. “I’d forgive you if maybe you made this by accident, thinking it to be something that would give you sweet dreams. Of me, of course,” he added as an aside, sending his men into peals of laughter. 

 

“I wouldn’t make tea with an unknown substance,” said Sansa. That, in itself, was true. 

 

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Ramsay. “You’re too stupid to try anything different.” 

 

The men guffawed again, but Sansa was used to this now. It seems that the whole of her life has been filled with cold and hostile halls that echo with laughter. 

 

“No matter!” said Ramsay, joyful again. “For there shan’t be any accidents in the future.” Casually he tossed the little bundle into the fire, and it took all of Sansa’s resolve not to watch it burn with dismay. 

 

“I think…” said Ramsay, “That we should celebrate.” 

 

He turned and faced his men, his arms opened wide once more. “Is my wife not the loveliest thing you have seen?” he asked. His men roared, men that had once been loyal to her father. 

 

“Would you like to see more of her?” asked Ramsay slyly. 

 

Their cheer had dust sifting down from the newly-repaired roof. 

 

“Come here, wife,” said Ramsay, his voice quiet again. 

 

Sansa knew what was coming. 

 

“Take off your cloak,” said Ramsay, his smile carnivous. 

 

With steady fingers, Sansa unclasped her cloak. 

 

~~~

 

Moon tea was only effective if taken within two weeks of sex or before the woman’s next courses. Sansa had two weeks to get more moon tea, and there wasn’t likely to be any even close to Winterfell. 

 

She finally had the motivation to leave- either Winterfell, or this life all together. And, she thought as she crept through the familiar halls of her home, if she had to leave this life, it may not be the worst option. 

 

Theon found her in the halls as she suspected he would. Ramsay usually left him on night watch. 

 

“Let me go, Theon,” she said as he gripped her wrist with fingers that hadn’t been set after being broken. They’d been here before, but this time Theon seemed to be wavering. 

 

“You saw what happened in the Hall yesterday,” she whispered. “You know that isn’t right.”

 

“Never abuse a lady, lad,” Theon whispered, and Sansa was relieved to hear her father’s words come from Theon’s tired brain instead of her husband’s.

 

“No,” said Sansa, more gently that she thought she could sound, for how she  _ hated  _ Theon. “Never abuse a lady.”

 

“Come on,” said Theon then, and just for the thinnest skin of a second he’d sounded like himself again. 

 

Sansa followed Theon to servants’ stairs and out onto the walls of the Old Keep. “Here,” he said, leading her around to the northeast corner. “The snow will break your fall.”

 

Sansa looked down at the seemingly infinite drop. It was so dark that she couldn’t make out the ground below. “It’ll be alright,” said Theon, getting agitated. “Go. Go!”

 

Sansa jumped. She’d already resolved to die, so anything past this moment- this moment of freefall through the stinging winter air- was a bonus. 

 

She landed sideways, and all the air was knocked out of her for a moment long enough to be panic inducing. Finally her lungs expanded again in deep gasps for air, and then she was up and sprinting for the treeline. 

 

Sansa knew that disguising her tracks wouldn’t help at this stage, because Ramsay would happily set his dogs after her as soon as he realized that she was gone. She sprinted through the snow to the treeline and then plunged on, ignoring the branches and thorns that tugged at her dress and hair. She’d worn the warmest clothes she could find, as well as two of her dresses, but Ramsay was in the habit of keeping her warmest clothes- her furs and oilskins- with him, probably for this exact reason. 

 

Sansa had ridden in these woods, at least a little bit, with her family. She’d never been interested in horses or really, anything in the outdoors. She’d seen her future as a southern manor lady, and learning to sit a saddle had felt like a waste of time. Now Sansa was glad that Catelyn had insisted on family outings with little Rickon up before Father. 

 

Their boundary had always been the stream, a spring-fed little rivulet that always ran, even in winter- it flowed under a layer of ice. If she moved quickly enough she could get to the stream before the dogs were released and break through the ice there. Her feet would freeze, but it would hide her footprints and hopefully, if she was lucky, disperse the scent.

 

It was hard to believe that it was still only autumn, for already there was nearly a foot of snow on the ground, and already the wind blew in from the north. Sansa knew that she risked losing her feet by walking through the stream. It was something all children of the North learned, even the stubborn ones, even the bratty, spoiled ones. They learned not to fall asleep in the cold, and not to ever get wet. They learned that if they had to stop moving, sleeping in the snow was warmer than sleeping on top of it. 

 

Sansa had a painfully tight stitch in her side by the time she reached the stream. She didn’t hear the dogs yet, and wondered why, but she wasn’t going to question her good fortune, for it would be the first luck to find her in a long, long time. 

 

Sansa paused by the edge of the little stream, her breath filling the air with great clouds of steam. This was where she would find out how badly she wanted to live. Awkwardly Sansa hiked up her dresses and the blanket she’d wrapped around herself like a cloak, holding them up above her knees. The sudden influx of cold sent a spine wracking shiver up her back and then Sansa took a deep breath and jumped with both feet onto the layer of ice covering the stream. 

 

She broke through the ice, which had been her goal, and now she found herself standing in water that came almost up to her knees. It absolutely burned, for that’s the only analog Sansa had for this type of pain. She burned herself curling her hair once, and then again when she was in the Eyrie while adding a log to her fires. 

 

This felt like those little burns but so much  _ worse,  _ like her legs were being torn from her body by millions of vicious ants. 

 

_ Walk,  _ Sansa told herself as her teeth chattered in her skull.  _ Walk.  _

 

She did, each step agony until her feet went numb, and even then her legs felt like lead, and a sickly sweat broke out and froze on her face. She could hear Ramsay’s dogs now, baying far in the distance, but she knew they wouldn’t stay in the distance for long. 

 

Maester Luwin and Old Nan used to quiz the Stark children on the words and families of the other noble houses of Westeros, and in a haze Sansa remembered them now. 

 

“Targaryen,” Maester Luwin asked as he and Sansa quietly ground herbs with a mortar and pestle.

 

“Sigil:  Three headed red dragon on a black field. Descendants of Old Valyria. Former seat in Dragonstone. Words: Fire and Blood,” Sansa recited dutifully. 

 

“And their unofficial words?” asked Maester Luwin, pouring the powdered herb into a vial.

 

Sansa was back in the stream, her numb legs dragging over the stones in the river bed. “You cannot burn a dragon,” she said out loud, remembering that long-ago summer day. 

 

She thought there must have been great pride in the Targaryens for insist that they couldn’t die by fire. Enough of them had been scorched in the Blackfyre Rebellion for them to have learned the error of their claim. Sansa wished that it was impossible to freeze a Stark. After this long in the north it really ought to be. 

 

Sansa walked in the stream until dawn when she couldn’t stand it anymore and she’d even grown too tired and cold to shiver. She knew that was a bad sign so she climbed out of the stream and dropped her skirts, which warmed her just a little. 

 

It was roughly two hundred miles to the seat of House Hornwood, which was ultimately her goal. They hadn’t declared for House Bolton, and their forces were too small for Roose to truly pursue.Sansa knew Ramsay would assume that she’d gone to Jon at the wall, so instead she was headed east. In good weather it would take two weeks to walk to Hornwood. She wasn’t walking in good weather. 

 

She walked through the day, and even though she could no longer hear the crying of Ramsay’s hounds she knew she wasn’t out of danger yet. She wasn’t out of danger anywhere, but especially here in the north. She didn’t have food, shelter, or dry clothes. She’d likely die of hypothermia before too long. At least the maesters said it was a nearly painless way to die. 

 

As night began to fall again, Sansa had to stop. She used the last bit of light to find a small snow drift that she could build up and hollow out. She had to shimmy into the little hidey-hole on her belly, but once she was inside at least she was out of the wind. 

 

Sansa didn’t pray to any god in particular anymore. If they were out there they were cruel gods, ones that enjoyed the suffering of men. Still, she whispered to herself in the dark,  _ “If any god can hear me, let me live through this. Let me make it to White Harbor. If you must take me, take me, but please: don’t let Ramsay find me.  _

 

_ ~~~ _

 

Sansa was surprised that she woke up. Everything hurt, and she was still quite cold, but the light had found her a free woman. She shinnied back out of her shelter, crushed it under her frozen boots, and scooped up a handful of snow to eat as she walked. The sun was out, glinting in weak rainbows off the snow, and it was easy for Sansa to know that she was moving the correct direction: she merely had to walk towards the sun. 

 

At midday she came to the Kingsroad, which was only discernible because of the stone mile markers sticking out of the snow.  A wagon was approaching, and Sansa hurried away, trying to crest one of the rolling hills and disappear before the traveler could see her. 

 

Her frozen feet weren’t quick enough. 

 

“You!” shouted a man. Sansa tried to run and stumbled when her toes didn’t cooperate. She’d known that she risked not only her toes but losing both feet to the cold, but she needed to try. 

 

“It’s alright!” a woman called to Sansa’s retreating, blanket-bound back. 

 

Sansa stopped and turned, squinting towards the covered wagon as it lumbered along, pulled on sled runners by a northern Snow Horse. The massive beast seemed content to rest and steam when the driver reined it to a stop. 

 

“Are you alright?” asked the woman, a round lady with ruddy cheeks and a greying braid. 

 

“Yes, madam,” said Sansa, and how easy it was to slip back into being Alayne Stone, lonely, common bastard child. 

 

“It’s not safe for a lady to be out on her own,” said the man, Between the beard and his furs, all Sansa could see of him were his eyes. 

 

“I know, ser, but… sometimes one doesn’t have a choice,” said Sansa.  “I wish you safe travels.” She tightened her grip on the blanket that was draped over her head like a makeshift hood hoping that her thrice-damned Tulley-red hair didn’t give her away again. Truly her hair wasn’t even Tulley red, at least not when compared to the current batch of Tullys. Their hair was muted, auburn red, a warm and autumn shade. 

 

Sansa’s hair was the color of fire and when wet it was the color of blood. Her hair was the color of life and warmth, and yet she was going to die out here in the cold. Funny, that. 

 

“Where are you headed, miss?” asked the woman, who still hadn’t asked Sansa for her name. Maybe she knew it was better that way. 

 

“Hornwood,” said Sansa warily. 

 

The woman glanced at her husband, who shrugged. “We could head that way,” she said. “We're merchants in Queenscrown, heading home with more supplies for autumn, but we could allow one of the ...nobler houses of the north first pick of our wares.”

 

Sansa didn’t know what to say. She also didn’t trust this couple, as sweet as they may seem. Handsomeness could cover great evil, and sweetness great malice. In Westeros, Sansa had learned, nobody really was what they seemed. 

 

“I appreciate your kind offer,” she began stiffly, not sure how to rebuff them, when the man interrupted. 

 

‘Get in the cart, you foolish girl. It’s too cold for schemes.” 

 

For whatever reason that did it. His blunt assessment of the situation  was just honest enough to put Sansa at ease, and so she slid into the cramped and covered portion of the wagon. The turned east at the next crossroad and quietly plodded along until the sky began to dim. 

 

“We’re stopping,” said the man, the first words anyone had said in hours. Sansa slipped out and stood awkwardly as the horse was umhitched and given a nosebag and a fire was started and snow melted over it. They ate dried meat that had been softened over the steam, and as Sansa sat cross legged in front of the fire her legs began to warm. It hurt like nothing ever had before, worse than walking through the stream. Her toes felt like they were being burned and smashed and removed from her body, and her legs stung and ached. 

 

Sansa thought she was mostly able to keep her face from showing her discomfort, because she was still invited to sleep under the wagon with the kind merchants. She crawled under and sat on one side of the space as heavy pieces of canvas were unrolled from where they’d been neatly lashed to the bottom of the wagon. In seconds the three were inside a dark and warmish tent, the shopkeeper’s wife in the middle, and soon after they were all asleep.

 

Once more Sansa was surprised to wake up. Once more they traveled east. 

 

It took them four days to reach Hornwood. The walls of this keep were built of Black Northern Pine, massive fir trees that would continue to grow and sap even in the depths of a long winter, even when they went without sunlight for weeks. 

 

“Who seeks entry to Hornwood Keep?” a sentry called from the top of the wall. 

 

“Merchants, ser, and a lady seeking aid,” called the lovely and still-nameless Samaritan. It was as though the couple knew that Sansa would lie or refuse to identify herself, so they didn’t bother with their names, either. They called her ‘miss’, and she called them ‘madam’ and ‘ser’. 

 

“Enter,” said the guard, “And prepare to have your wagon searched.”

 

They rolled through the gates and into the small keep where torches already flickered. Guards appeared to search the contents of the wagon while Sansa and her saviours stood quietly by. Eventually another retainer appeared, his cloak bearing the black and orange moose of House Hornwood, to take them to see the family. 

 

Lady Hornwood was sitting by the fire in the hall, a small gathering of women and men there with her. 

 

“Greetings,’ she said, and Sansa and her companions bowed and curtsied. 

 

“Thank you, Lady Hornwood, for agreeing to see us,” said Sansa. 

 

The lady shrugged. “Here in the north we know how to behave in winter,’ she said.”After all, it could so easily be you who gets trapped out in the cold. 

 

Sansa nodded, for that was true. As it was unheard of to refuse water in a desert, so was it to refuse warmth in the North. 

 

“What can House Hornwood do for you… miss?” Lady Hornwood asked, raising an eyebrow. 

 

“We were traveling on our way home to Queenscrown with fresh supplies, milady, and we thought you and the other keeps would prefer first pick of the goods,” said the merchant’s wife. 

 

Lady Hornwood’s eyebrows raised even further. “This house is four days out of your way,” she said.

 

The merchant shot a guilty look at Sansa. 

 

“I’ll have my castellan look through your bounty to see if there is something we need,” said Lady Hornwood, waving her hand towards the door. “Thank you for the honor you do House Hornwood, and please stay the night in our hall.”

 

With relief clear on their faces, Sansa’s rescuers bowed and curtsied away.

 

“Lave us, please,” said Lady Hornwood to the others who were still silently gathered around her. They did, filtering away to other parts of the keep, and Lady Hornwood gestured Sansa into a recently abandoned chair by the fire. Once more, inside her thawing boots, Sansa’s feet began to burn.

 

“I received a raven three days ago from Winterfell,” said Lady Hornwood. “It was a letter from Ramsay Bolton, self-styled Warden of the North. He claimed that his lady wife had gone missing, and anyone who returned her to him in good health would be rewarded with a hundred silver stags. Anyone who aided her would be paid on a cross.”

 

Sansa swallowed, but didn’t remove her gaze from the lady’s face. That was another lesson learned from Littlefinger. 

 

“Are you Lady Bolton?” asked Lady Hornwood. 

 

“I am not,” said Sansa easily, her voice strong and true.  _ I am  _ not _ Lady Bolton. I am a  _ Stark,  _ I am a descendant of the first men and the children of the forest, I am winter and I am ice.  _

 

“I am glad to hear it, lady,” said Lady Hornwood. “Because then I could not, in good faith, give you what you need. Which is…?” 

 

She left the question dangle there, a rope tossed as either a helpline or a noose. 

 

“Moontea,” said Sansa immediately. “Some tonight, and more to carry with me. Passage to White Harbor as well, and if you can help me find safe passage south once I’m there, that would be all the better.”

 

“Can you pay?” asked Lady Hornwood, and then she quickly added, “I only have so much money at my discretion, lady, and it is to both of our benefit that my husband is away tonight. I can disguise some spent money because of our merchant friends, but too much…”

 

“I have some,” said Sansa. She’d sewn coins into her skirts and corsets, one at a time, as the coins came to her. She had some money, but not enough to get her to where she needed to go.

 

“Good,” said Lady Hornwood, rising. “Then we have much to do.” She stood, and led Sansa away. 

 

Sansa was given a large mug of the bitter and metallic moontea and she chugged it down on the spot, savoring the terrible taste, not minding the way the hot brew scalded her tongue. Something inside her, some tension that she’d been carrying, relaxed when she set the empty mug down. 

 

She was so close to being free of Ramsay. 

 

When she was escorted to a small guest chamber Sansa was finally able to slip off her clothes and boots, and there she met with a sight that she had half-expected and completely dreaded. 

 

On each foot her two smallest toes were a pale but recognizable green and the nail had already hardened and begun to yellow. Her other toes were encased in hard and blistered skin, and the very tip of her third toe on her left foot was green as well. 

 

She couldn’t do anything about it now, she decided practically. Truly, she was only thankful that they didn’t hurt more, for Sansa was practiced at hiding throbbing, persistent pain. It was odd, this detachment from her past self. Once any blemish or scrape or freckle had been enough to make Sansa fret and obsess, worrying that her beauty was beginning to fade. 

 

Now Sansa only worried because she’d finally learned her lesson, the one that the fates had been trying to beat into her ever since Bran fell from the tower window so many years ago: She was a stupid girl with nothing but her beauty, yes, but her beauty was also her weapon. And finally,  _ finally,  _ after so many brutal lessons at the hands of so many brutal men, she was beginning to learn. 

 

She washed and then slid her poor mangled feet into the thick, darned socks that a mad had brought to her. It would be alright, Sansa told herself as she climbed under a musty pile of furs.  _ And if it isn’t alright… I’ll make it so. _

 

Lady Hornwood was as good as her word, and efficient about it as well. Two riders were sent with her at dawn the next day, along with supplies, a few coins, and a warmer cloak.

 

“It’s a miracle you didn’t freeze, lady,” said Lady Hornwood as she clasped the borrowed cloak around Sansa’s throat. 

 

“It was tempting,” said Sansa with a small smile, “But we northerners are stubborn.”

 

Lady Hornwood had smiled and wished Sansa well before adding, “I’ll send a raven to White Harbor. There’s a captain there who I think would like to meet you.”

 

Sansa took Lady Hornwood’s hands in hers. “Thank you, Lady Hornwood,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll remember this.”

 

Lady Hornwood’s answering smile was small and humorless, but she gently squeezed Sansa’s hand in return. “The north remembers, Lady Stark,” she whispered. “Good luck.”


	2. Painful little things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lady captain.  
> Toes: painful little things

It was nearly two weeks to White Harbor, and Sansa was half-dead with exhaustion by the time she got there.  _ Half dead was half alive,  _ she thought to herself.  _ And winter is coming.  _

 

Her guards led her to the docks district, and from there to a dark, signless establishment a ways from the harbor master’s office. “What is this place?” Sansa whispered as they ducked through the low door. 

 

“Don’t have a name, miss,” said one of her guards. “And they don’t like it iffen you do ask.”

 

Sansa just nodded. She was led to a shadowy table in the corner where two women sat, one giggling. The giggler was in the minimum amount of clothing that could be worn indoors during a northern winter, namely a thin linen shift, a soft-sided set of colored stays, and a shawl that was becoming more lacy looking by the hour. 

 

The other woman wore trousers and a boiled leather shirt which had been stitched into poor man’s armour. It was rather like the stuff Ned’s retainers had worn around the keep in the summer. The trouser-wearing woman had shoulder length brown hair, a round face, and eyes that watched everything around her with wariness and confidence alike. 

 

Like a static shock Sansa realized that, in a different world, this could have been Arya- well, apart from the giggling whore. Arya had preferred short hair, Arya had wanted to be a knight, Arya had been spanked within an inch of her life by Catelyn when the woman had caught Arya wearing a pair of Bran’s breeches. 

 

Arya was dead, lost somewhere in the Riverlands. With a newly heavy heart, Sansa followed her guards towards the women.

 

“You Asha?” asked Sansa’s guard.

 

“Who’s asking?” asked the woman in leather. 

 

“Representatives of House Hornwood,” said the guard.

 

Through this whole exchange Aasha’s eyes hadn’t left Sansa, despite the fact that she’d been talking to someone else. ‘Run along, love,” said Asha, looking at the lightskirt who was still half-draped over Asha’s lap. The girl pouted, and Asha pressed a loud kiss to her lips. “I’ll be back,” she said. “So be good.”

 

The girl grinned saucily before flouncing away. 

 

“You just going to stand there, or are you going to drink something?” asked Asha. Sansa wondered if all this- the whore and the manners and the piss-smelling tavern- had been put together as some kind of test for Sansa. 

 

Sansa sat in the chair nearest Asha and nodded to the other woman. “You’re a captain?” she asked. 

 

“Yes,” said Asha. “You aren’t going to ask where my husband is?” 

 

She was supposed to sound taunting, but Sansa could her that little tinge of bewilderment. “A woman like you needs no husband,” said Sansa. Inspired by her own continual near-death experience she added, “Actually, I think most women don’t need a husband. They’re the ones that would starve without us.”

 

Asha slapped a palm down on the table, making Sansa’s escort jump. “You’re fucking right,’ she said. Grey eyes met Sansa’s blues assessingly. ‘Lady Hornwood told me there was a package in danger here in the north, and that I’d enjoy helping her transport this ... _ thing  _ to safety. For once, she might be right.”

 

Sansa didn’t know what to say to that. 

 

“You realize I like women the way most ladies like knights?”

 

Snasa laughed, but hollowly. “I once desperately wanted to marry a man who enjoyed an exclusive relationship with his jousting opponent. When I found out, I still didn’t mind.”

 

Asha’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll listen to what I say on my ship?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You’ll not complain about the way I run my crew?”

 

“Why would I?” asked Sansa, now genuinely confused.

 

Asha smirked. “Because you aren’t Ironborn, because you’re noble, because your blood has about as much salt in it as mine does snow.”

 

“Fair enough,” said Sansa. “Can you get me safely south?”

 

“How far?” was Asha’s immediate reply. 

 

“As far as you can get,’ said Sansa, only now letting herself truly think of the plan that she’d nurtured with desperate, stupid hope. “Dorne, ideally.”

 

“That’s two months at sea, lady,” said Asha. “And you’ve yet to mention payment or the bounty on your head.”

 

“I thought you liked to steal goods away from arsehole inlanders,” said Sansa, knowing which buttons to push. 

 

“You can hardly call it stealing when the booty walks right up to my ship,” said Asha, a little glum. 

 

“As for payment- I have forty silver stags,” said Sansa.  _ And half of those aren’t even my own. _

 

It should be enough. For most captains it  _ would  _ be enough, but Sansa was traveling by herself. If she took any other ship she’d be raped before the ship even made it out of the harbor.

 

Asha raised an eyebrow and held her tongue, looking Sansa up and down. “You have any skills?” she asked. 

 

“Skills?” asked Sansa, taken aback. 

 

“Skills,” said Asha like she was talking to a child. “Can you cook or sew or mend?”

 

“I can sew and mend,” said Sansa. “But not well enough to justify a cheaper trip south.”

 

Asha nodded, seeming to appreciate the honesty.

 

“We’ll do it for the forty under two conditions- one. You sleep on the floor of my cabin. Otherwise there’s no way I can guarantee you’ll get anywhere without a babe in your belly, like it or no. Two, we don’t rush getting there. We’ll need other coin, and other coin means stops. If you help out, I’ll knock the price down. Fair?” she asked Sansa. 

 

“...on the floor of your room?” Sansa checked. 

 

Asha, woman that she was, knew exactly what Sansa was asking. “Unlike men, I don’t like girls crying under me, unless it’s my name on their lips,” she said. “I don’t need to feel like a big strong man.”

 

Sansa nodded. “Thank you. Yes- it’s a fair deal.”

 

“Well, come on then,” said Yara, standing and sticking out her hand. “Tide’s turning.”

 

Sansa shook on the deal, properly, the way her father would shake the hand of his blacksmith or friend. She smiled, a  _ real  _ smile, and Asha grinned back. 

 

The guards passed Sansa’s pouch of coins over and took their leave, job done. Sansa followed Asha out into the cold night, where lanterns burned at the berthing of each ship. 

 

“How can you sail at night?” asked Sansa, wishing for the thousandth time that she’d cared more about lessons. 

 

“The stars,” said Asha, looking up and taking a deep breath of salty air. “If you know where they are, you know where you are.”

 

“You knew who I was,” said Sansa finally. 

 

Asha snorted. “Of course I fucking knew, with ravens going everywhere about Lady Bolton and your hair redder than a torch.”

 

“Then why-?”

 

“Because fuck him,” said Asha. “I’ve… I’ve seen some of his work. He had my brother,” said Asha finally, her voice low. “Theon.”

 

“You’re Asha Greyjoy,” said Sansa, wondering once again at her own selfishness and imbecility: how had she not connected Asha and the Ironborn with Theon? 

 

“Yes,” said Asha, smiling grimly in the dim light from the ships’ lanterns. “And I’d like you to tell me everything that can get my brother back.”

 

“I’ll do it,” said Sansa. “And then, one day… I’ll be back for Winterfell.” She felt Asha’s eyes on her then, cold and assessing. 

 

“I hope you’re right,” said Asha. “I truly do.”

 

They walked in a friendly silence further down the dock. “Here she is,” said Asha. “ _ Black Wind _ .” 

 

Sansa barely had time to look at the ship before she was being hauled up a ramp and onto the deck, Asha’s fingers tight around Sansa’s wrist. 

 

“I caught one, lads!” she said dramatically, raising Sansa’s hand in the air. They few men who’d been lounging around on deck cheered. “Now lets run!” bellowed Asha, and then the deck was a flurry of activity and Sansa was being dragged down a short ladder and through a low hall into a cabin room. There was a bed built into one wall with drawers under the sleeping shelf. A small wash stand was also built in, and there was a chamber pot in the corner. 

 

“This is what I’ve got,” said Asha. “The men think we’re in here fucking, so you’re safe for tonight. Here-” she pointed to a rolled pallet and blanket that sat at the end of the bed. “I have that for you if you want to sleep.”

 

Sansa took the roll gratefully. “You knew you’d take me,” she said. 

 

“I thought so, yes,” said Asha, unlacing her leather shirt and tossing it aside. “I can’t stand to see a pretty girl wasted.”

 

“Do you… often kidnap women?” asked Sansa as she unrolled the pallet. 

 

“Yes,’ said Asha. “I take ‘em on a run, love ‘em a bit, and then drop them home. It’s fun all around,” she said, a little smile on her lips.

 

Sansa fell asleep thinking about that. Here was a woman of the Ironborn, a culture known for raping and pillaging and general barbarics, and yet… Asha seemed to have a code of her own, at least when it came to women. And she did  _ so  _ remind Sansa of Arya. 

 

It took Asha a week to notice Sansa’s feet, and even then Sansa wanted to deny the truth. 

 

“Some of it may heal,” she argued, thinking of the toes that were still pink and blistered and angry. 

 

“Not those,’ said Asha, her tone hard and arguing. “Those are a dead woman’s toes.”

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Sansa admitted. 

 

“We’ll stop at Oldtown,’ said Asha. ‘The maesters there have to help you, there’s some sort of rule about it.”

 

“But-” said Sansa. How would she walk? Would she contract a fever and die? Would she even make it back to the ship?

 

“We’ll figure it out,” said Asha, laying back against her own pillows. “Besides- it’ll give me a chance to get some paper so you can write down everything about Winterfell and Ramsay Bolton.”

 

In the end, Sansa walked into the Citadel with ten toes and no coin. It was explained to her that because she could not pay, she would be operated on by a junior maester under the supervision of a teacher. 

 

The appearance of the junior maester made her break out in a cold sweat. In Sansa’s head she knew that maesters learned somewhere, that they didn’t spring out of the ground middle aged and filled with knowledge, but this man- he seemed too impossibly young to be here, to be here holding  _ scalpels.  _

 

“My name’s Sam,” he said, his cheeks pink and his eyes smiling. “I hear we have toes to see to?”

 

Sansa nodded, and Sam sat on a stool and took her foot in his palm as she balanced awkwardly on the other. His brow furrowed, and the older maester, the one with a chain that rattled  _ so comfortingly,  _ seemed loathe to do anything. 

 

“Cold?” Sam asked. 

 

Sansa nodded. 

 

“I’ve seen it before,” he said, still manically cheerful. “I’m to be the maester to the Night’s Watch. The Lord Commander sent me here himself. 

 

_ Jon,  _ thought Sansa.  _ Oh, Jon. How clever I thought mother was when she sent you to the wall, how funny I thought it. Now, you’re the last of Ned Stark’s sons.  _

 

Sansa wished she could ask about her brother (for he was more her brother now than he’d ever been as a child and that was another of her many sins) but even here, even this far south Sansa didn’t want to reveal her identity. Ramsay’s influence may not reach far, but his spies did. 

 

Sam instructed her to drink a small glass of cheap wine that had been mixed with milk of the poppy. She did it and lay back on the smooth wooden table, and felt Sam wiping her feet down with something. 

 

She felt the agony of the first incision, the scalpel sliding down to the dying bone. 

 

She didn’t feel the second. 

 

Asha helped her back to the ship, and by the time they’d shuffled the length of the dock Sansa’s beautiful white bandages were nearly black with grime. That night the fever took her, and Sansa lived in a haze of pain and despair. 

 

On the fourth day she awoke clear headed. The pain was down to a low throb and Sansa could feel (and smell) the drying sick-sweat that coated her hair and clothes. She wanted to wash, she needed to wash, but first she needed to see what had happened to her fet. She needed to see what Ramsay had cost her. 

 

Someone had given up on bandaging her feet, because there they were, pink and high-arched and sticking out from beneath her blanket. She was down four and a half toes- the two littlest ones on each foot, and half of the third toe on her left foot. The skin that had blistered had been cut away to reveal tender but healthy skin beneath. 

 

They were little things, toes. Little but important. Sam had cauterized his incisions, Sansa could tell what burns looked like. 

 

Sansa was afraid to stand. She was afraid to damage herself, she was afraid of the pain, she was afraid of what the future held for her like this. 

 

Sansa was afraid, but she acted anyway. She’d learned that life continued, like it or not, and it was best to face it head on. 

 

It was incredibly painful to hobble to the washbasin. It was painful to balance, and agony to accidentally graze the cabinet with the place where her little toes should have been. She was naked and scrubbing when Asha walked in, but at this point Sansa just didn’t care. 

 

“I’m glad you’re up,” was all the other woman said. “Want a bucket of water for your hair?”

 

It was cold and salty and clean, and after Asha helped Sansa rinse the soap from her hair she planted a kiss right on Sansa’s mouth. 

 

Sansa didn’t know what to do. It was pleasant enough; she knew her bunkmate regularly used tooth powder. Asha leaned back, looked at Sansa’s face, and shrugged with a grin. “Can’t blame me for trying,” she said. 

 

Now that Sansa was awake she committed to paper everything that she knew of Ramsay. She wrote about his wine preferences, how he shifted and hid his sleeping spot, how he treated his dogs, the retainers that could be bribed and the ones who were the most loyal. The only thing Sansa couldn’t bring herself to do was draw a map of Winterfell. 

 

Winterfell’s secrets were hers now. She was a Stark, and there  _ was no Stark in Winterfell.  _ She wasn’t deluding herself: she may be friendly with Asha, and the woman may have had a moral code of her own, but she was an Ironborn. She was loyal to her people, and Sansa needed to remain loyal to hers, even if her people were all ghosts now. 

 

Come what may, Sansa was not about to go down in history as the Stark who drew a map of Winterfell for her enemies to use for the next thousand years. 

 

Asha, thankfully, didn’t press the issue. She just smiled mirthlessly at Sansa’s notes and asked careful questions. Where were the kennels? Were they usually locked? Those Sansa answered gratefully. 

 

Her next opportunity to earn her keep came off of Cape Wrath, just a dozen or so days from their destination. Asha and her crew had boarded a merchant vessel, slow and heavy, and Sansa had stayed below humming to herself and determinedly  _ not  _ thinking about the night of the Blackwater. 

 

One of Asha’s pirates had died, and he was buried at sea, returning to the waters in which all people are born. Another sailor had taken a sabre to the back and it was Sansa’s job to stitch him up while staunching the blood. She had to pretend it was embroidery, and carefully she punctured his skin with more than a hundred stitches. Asha kissed her again, but on the cheek this time, and Sansa had promptly needed to retch over the sight of the boat when she saw the blood on her hands. 

 

“Poor lass,’ she heard Asha comment to someone. “Seven weeks at sea and she doesn’t turn green, not even during that storm at the beginning. Now, with just a little blood-”

 

_ A lot of blood  _ Sansa silently corrected-

 

“-she loses her breakfast down the side of boat,” Asha finished, but at least there was no malice in her voice. 

 

Sansa typically spent most of her time in Asha’s cabin, but the day they were due to arrive in Sunspear she waited on the deck like a heartbroken girl eager to meet her lover. It was warm, even with Sansa only clad in one of her dresses, and the sun shone bright on the two towers that came into view first. They were tall and while and crowned with golden onion-shaped domes. It was easy to see how they summoned images of a sun and spear to mind. 

 

When they reached the docks and everything was knotted and tied and stowed, Sansa stood on deck with Asha, all of her belongings hanging over her shoulder in a small canvas sack. 

 

“Thank you,” she said, taking Asha’s hand and giving it a squeeze. 

 

Asha smiled and passed Sansa a small pouch. “Here- it isn’t much, but I think you’ve earned these ten crowns honestly.”

 

Sansa took the coins, her pride losing out to newfound practicality. “Thank you,” she said again, and this time she cradled Asha’s cheek with her palm and gently kissed the other woman. 

 

Asha’s eyes were wry when Sansa pulled back. “If you want to earn passage for the return trip, I’ve got a few suggestions,” she said on a laugh. 

 

Sansa waved and stepped down the gangplank into the sun and dust of Sunspear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that the opening chapters here are a lot, and I'd like to thank you for reading them. I don't like Sansa's show arc any more than the other book readers do, but I do like later season "I've had it up to HERE with men's bullshit" Sansa, and so this is the result. I wrote nearly 45k words of this story in two weeks, which is a personal record. I'll update at least once a week, usually on a Monday.
> 
> As a writer I run on coffee, about five hours of sleep, and the kind remarks of people who read my work. Please let me know what you think! 
> 
> Here's to all my other people out there who write GoT/ASoIaF rare-pair fics!


	3. Dorne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting with princes.  
> A dress.   
> A promise.

Sansa sat in the outer court of the Old Palace one the edge of a fountain, only half paying attention to the bustle of servants and tradespeople and smallfolk around her. 

 

She hadn’t thought she’d make it this far. She’d been sure she’d freeze in the north or die in the jaws of Ramsay’s hounds. Then when she’d made it to White Harbor she’d been sure that she’d be ransomed back to the Boltons. Now… now she’d survived the journey, survived fever, and she didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, all at once, Sansa was paralyzed by all the things that could still go wrong. She didn’t have a way home from here, she didn’t have any friends, and there was no love lost between Dorne and the north- and everything was north of Dorne. 

 

_ Breathe, _ Sansa told herself, closing her eyes. Just like she had with Ramsay she pictured herself next to a window, watching imaginary snow fall down in fat, lazy flakes. She told herself that she could feel the cool air and hear the crackle of a fire in her hearth. 

 

Sansa jumped when someone sat down close to her, but before she could rise and scurry away a warm hand closed around her upper arm. Sansa turned, opening her mouth to demand that she be unhanded, when she came face to face with Oberyn Martell, Prince of Dorne. 

 

Sansa froze. She’d only seen Oberyn from a distance in the days before Joffrey’s death and her flight to Littlefinger. 

 

“Peace, Lady,” said the prince, his vowels lilting with the musicality of the Rhoyne. 

 

Sansa watched him suspiciously. 

 

“My brother, the crown prince… he has been receiving the strangest ravens from the North,” said Oberyn, lounging back to watch a group of children chase each other through the courtyard just outside the threshold of the Old Palace. “These ravens rage about stolen brides and broken promises and bounties for a beautiful redheaded girl.”

 

Sansa swallowed hard and turned her face to the sun. She might as well enjoy it now, for soon she’d be shipped home to die at her husband’s hands. She could only hope that Ramsay would allow her bones to rest alongside those of her ancestors. 

 

“Can I assume that all the houses of Westeros have received such missives?” asked Sansa evenly. 

 

“Certainly,” said Oberyn. “The man has lost a great treasure.”

 

What was Sansa supposed to say to that?  _ The treasure was never his to begin with?  _

 

“When will I be returned?” asked Sansa. She already knew how he’d recognized her: there weren’t redheads in Dorne. 

 

Oberyn laughed, which transformed his angular face- suddenly it was easy to see how the man had fathered eight daughters. His laugh even made Sansa smile. 

 

“Nobody ‘returns’ women anywhere in Dorne. Women and children and men go where they please, when they please.”

 

“I’m not Dornish,” said Sansa sadly. 

 

“And yet here you sit,” said Oberyn quietly, his eyes focused on her. “Unbowed, unbent-”

 

“-And only a little bit broken,” said Sansa, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. 

 

“Unbreakable,” said Oberyn softly. “Will you come inside and see my brother?”

 

He rose and offered Sansa a hand. She eyed it- refusing his help would be  a slight so she took it for the shortest amount of time considered polite. She followed him through the gates and into the Old Palace, a gently arching sandstone structure covered in hand-painted tiles. Sansa was aware of how she was bobbing along, her once graceful gliding walk gone along with her toes. She could walk, but the burned nerves ached and she wobbled just the littlest bit, her steps shorter than before. 

 

Prince Oberyn had noticed. “Allow me, my lady,” he said before taking Sansa’s hand and placing it firmly on his own arm. To ensure her cooperation he kept her hand there, an old sign of courtly affection. Sansa wondered if there existed a man, anywhere in the world, who was able to keep his hands to himself. 

 

Eventually they appeared in another courtyard, this one containing a shallow pool with floating flowers and softly weathered statues. At the back of the courtyard was another arching entryway and then they were winding their way up, up into one of the towers, Sansa’s feet beginning to ache in her much-maligned boots. 

 

Prince Doran’s office- solar?- was a round room with high, thin windows and a modest, pale-wood desk. The prince was seated there, working on a letter, and two guards with spears stood on either side of him. 

 

“Brother,” said Oberyn, barging in. “Look who I found.”

 

Doran looked up and glanced at Sansa. “Lady Stark,” he said, nodding his head. Sansa curtsied, and Doran gestured to a small sitting area on the other side of the room. Oberyn escorted her there and Sansa sank gracefully onto the low couch. Oberon took a high-backed chair, and Sansa watched with surprise as Prince Doran was pushed in a fascinating wheeled chair towards them. 

 

“I’m sorry I don’t find you well, my lord,” said Sansa, and even to her own surprise these were more than courtly words, hollow and empty of real meaning. Of all the leaders of all the great houses, Sansa would guess that Doran deserved his affliction the least. 

 

“Thank you, Lady Stark,” said Doran, and Sansa was grateful all over again that he didn’t call her by her married name. 

 

“Sansa,” she said. “Please call me Sansa.”

 

Doran inclined his head. “Sansa, I expect you have a tale to tell,” he said. “We heard of your marriage to the Bolton bastard last year.”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa, keeping her fingers from fidgeting using willpower that in a man would have been called heroic. “I- Littlefinger sent me to Ramsay. I was told he was the naturalized son of Roose Bolton, and I was led to believe that he was much like his father. It was Ramsay or Littlefinger, you see…”

 

The princes waited patiently. “Daemon,” said Doran. “Call for some refreshments for our guest.”

 

One of the guards exited the room, and Sansa continued her story. “I was stupid and foolish. I thought being home in Winterfell, but married to a man like Roose, would be hard, but better than continuing to travel with LIttlefinger or staying with the Hardyings.”

 

Oberyn opened his mouth but Doran’s hand shot from beneath his blanket in a gesture to  _ stop.  _

 

“We were married nearly a year ago, now. When I- when I couldn’t bear it anymore I decided to run. If I’d gone anywhere else I would have been passed to the Lannisters and from there to Ramsay… I thought- I’d hoped that I would be safe here. I’d be happy to work, my prince,” said Sansa, looking up from her clasped hands now. “I can sew and embroider well, and I’d be more than content to serve the ladies of your household.”

 

Oberyn was staring up at the ceiling now, a muscle working in his jaw, but Doran was watching at her with kind eyes.  “I would be happy to host you, Sansa, as a lady with your rank deserves. You do not need to work for you keep, and you are free to come and go as you please. I think perhaps you’ll find that the south is a more hospitable place than you expect.”

 

Sansa glanced back down at the stained toes of her boots. She didn’t know what to say to that- she knew nothing was ever free, and she knew that despite her general idiocy and lack of any practical skills, she still represented power. She was still a Stark, still the blood of WInter Kings that stretched back into a time before history began. 

 

“Thank you, my prince,” said Sansa, still not looking up. “You’ve been most generous.”

 

“I’ve heard of you, you know,” he said. 

 

Sansa’s head snapped up. 

 

The corner of Doran’s mouth quirked, but Sansa didn’t blush at his obvious judgement of her reaction. She didn’t think she had any blushes left. 

 

“Princess Myrcella lives here, lady,” he said. “And over the years she’s told us of her life at court. You were mentioned among the beautiful ladies, and you were among those who were ...mistreated by Joffrey.”

 

Not  _ King Joffrey.  _ Not  _ Joffrey Baratheon.  _ Just Joffrey, the Butcher Boy King. 

 

Once again Sansa found herself not knowing what to say-oh how Septa Mordane would have been disappointed in her former charge. 

 

“He was… volatile, my prince,” said Sansa. She thought of the scars on her back, and as she did every time, she considered herself lucky. So many people had walked away with worse, or hadn’t escaped at all.

 

A servant arrived with a wheeled tray carrying heady herbal tea, small sandwiches of smokes fish, and peeled oranges. 

 

When Oberyn caught Sansa sneakily- or at least she thought she’d been sneaky- sniffing at a wedge of orange he grinned. 

 

“I love citrus,” said Sansa, a little embarrassed at being caught out. Within seconds she wished she could take the words back into herself, because maybe they would be like Ramsay, maybe they would deprive her of her favorite foods only to make her eat organ meat-

 

But they weren’t Ramsay, and oranges grew here nearly as thickly as snow fell in the north. If they stopped serving them, she’d pick the fruit herself. Sansa suspected that Oberyn was watching these feelings flicker over her face, so Sansa called up the only defences she had left to her: the manners of a lady, hard earned and protectively defended. 

 

“I was relieved to hear of your victory over the Mountain, my prince,” said Sansa, daintily dipping her fingers into a finger cup. “I saw him fight in a tourney when I was newly arrived in King’s Landing. He was … fearsome.”

 

“He was barbaric, an inhuman creation left to walk among men,” said Oberyn. “A perversion of the gods. But thank you, my lady. I was glad to defeat him: for my sister, for my kingdom, and for all hurt girls everywhere.”

 

Sansa stiffened. “This is the Sun Tower, isn’t it? I’d heard about it when I was a child, but never thought to see it…” She changed the subject and whiled away the next quarter of an hour asking her hosts about their city and country. She ate two of the little sandwiches and an entire orange, wishing that she could lick the sweet juice from her fingers. 

 

When the luncheon was finished Doran gestured for the rolling table to be removed. Sansa saw his fingers were swollen at the joints; the skin appearing hot and angry. 

 

“Would you like to retire, Lady Sansa? We’ll have had a chamber prepared by now, and there are baths, if you wish it.” 

 

“Please, my prince, if you do not require my presence,” said Sansa. She hoped that it would be a private room. She’d appreciated all that Asha had done for her, but the idea of sleeping on a real mattress in a room that wasn’t bobbing around on the sea was enough to bring tears to her eyes. 

 

“I’ll escort you, my lady,” said Oberyn, rising to his feet. 

 

Doran agreed before Sansa could demure. There was something about the Dornishman; he reminded her a little bit of Tyrion. She’d never say as much- it was often death to speak the Lannister name in Dorne- but the resemblance was there. They both had overblown reputations, they both seemed content to amuse themselves and let the world go hang, and yet… they both seemed to take information in and store it all away, their eyes all the more perceptive because nobody expected them to be looking.

 

“Come, lady,’ he said, taking her hand and placing it on his arm again. 

 

“Sansa,” she said. It had been too long since someone had called her by her name, the name her parents had chosen for her. She’d only been  _ Lady Bolton  _ to those in Winterfell, and she’d mostly been called  _ wife,  _ by Ramsay, the title an act of possession. 

 

“Then you must call me Oberyn,” he said. 

 

They strolled slowly down the stairs and out of the Sun Tower. “The family was too large to be contained in the tower,” he said, “And now it is good, for when Doran manages to sleep none of us are there to wake him.”

 

_ They’re housing me with the family,  _ she thought tiredly.  _ Surely that means they already have plans for me in mind.  _

 

They walked through a shaded passageway covered in vines to another high-ceilinged building, the shape of the Towers’ onion domes reflected in the windows and arches. A servant girl in a dull orange dress had been waiting in the first arch. “She will be here, my prince,” said the girl, leading them down another hall to a remote chamber. 

 

Oberyn finally released Sansa’s hand and to her intense embarrassment she wobbled. Her left foot ached; the partially removed toe hurt worse than it should, for how could such a small thing be such a pain in the arse?

 

He shot her a look of concern before addressing the servant girl. “She is to have anything she needs, and if you think there is something that  _ should  _ have but will not request, bring her that as well.”

 

“Of course, my prince,” said the girl, and when she curtsied she came up smiling. Sansa wondered about this bit of cheekiness. Maybe it was acceptable in Dorne, or maybe Sansa just attracted cheeky women. She was thinking of Shae, her fierce friend, and despite everything she missed her. 

 

“Until later,” said Oberyn, sketching a bow towards Sansa. “Rest well.”

 

“Thank you,” said Sansa with a curtsey. 

 

With a sigh of relief, she followed the maid into the dim coolness of her chamber.

 

~~~

 

Sansa spent most of her first day in Dorne asleep. After her meeting with the princes she slipped out of her dress, bathed in the jasmine-scented water, and fell into bed asleep before she’d even put her shift on. It didn’t matter that it had only been a little after luncheon- she slept until sunrise the next day. Her dress- her poor, travel-worn dress- had been laundered and hung over the back of a chair. For a few minutes Sansa enjoyed laying in her bed- a soft thing, with clean scented sheets in a darkened, private room. She knew she could go without, but oh- how wonderful it was. 

 

She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. She’d been ungrateful most of her life, ungrateful like a spoiled child. She’d thought that she somehow  _ deserved _ a prince; that her efforts in manners and embroidery and beauty (she smiled, for now that she knew she’d put no effort into her looks, that she’d been born with a face and a body men loved) had somehow earned her more than Winterfell, more than her mother had had.  

 

She’d wanted a southern prince, and when she had had one, she found him not to her tastes any longer. 

 

Sick of introspection, sick of feeling sorry for herself, Sansa rose and tugged she sheets back into order on her bed. She quickly dressed and splashed some water on her face before hastily braiding her hair down her back. She suddenly wanted to be out of these rooms, to see if she  _ could  _ truly walk in the garden without being sent back to her chambers like a child- like a prisoner. 

 

Her half-toe ached as she padded down the hallway, pausing to look out the screened openings to the gardens and fountains beyond. They were beautiful here, far outstripping the gardens of the Red Keep, which had once seemed like heaven after the colorlessness of her childhood home. Sansa stepped through an arching structure of hammered bronze, and all over this arch a flowering vine twined heavily, little orange and yellow and pink buds scenting the air with honey-smelling perfume. The paths were lined with wide, flat white stones, and Sansa strolled along them, her worries very nearly forgotten. 

 

She noticed something as she made it to the other side of the great open space: all of the statues here were of something joyful. There were no knights with raised swords here, no weeping women or statues of the Stranger. Hidden in a glen of spiky bushes with deep purple leaves was a life-sized statue of a chubby toddler playing tug with a puppy. One fountain showed smiling lovers entwined- naked lovers, very happy naked lovers. The other fountain showed a man in traditional Dornish robes pouring water from a cup onto the ground in salute. 

 

This was a happy place, she decided. A place for a family, a place that was free from war or bloody history. 

 

“Good morning, my lady,” a voice called, and Sansa turned to see Prince Oberyn strolling along the path towards her. He looked… handsome in this early light, she decided. The glow brought out the bronze of his skin and the nearly red highlights in his dark hair. He looked freshly shaved, and wore a long, lightweight orange coat that was cut nearly down to his navel.

 

Sansa tensed. She didn’t trust handsome men, and she didn’t trust this one not to send her scurrying back to her room.

 

“Good morning, my prince,” she said. 

 

“Oberyn,” he insisted, coming to join her in the shade of another flowering arched trellis. “Are you enjoying the gardens?”

 

‘They’re beautiful,” said Sansa, settling comfortably into courtly talk of nothing. “Wild but controlled, serene and happy.”

 

“My brother’s design,” said Oberyn, taking her arm once more- didn’t he know she could walk by herself?- and guided her deeper into the gardens and away from her rooms. Sansa relaxed a bit.

 

“He is interested in architecture, my- ah, Oberyn?” she asked. 

 

He gave her a grin when she used his name, his teeth flashing white against his skin. “My brother is interested in everything,” he said, leading her slowly along wandering white paths. This garden featured pools, one with floating flowers, another filled with glinting fish, and a third with blooming grasses. 

 

“I had a brother like that,’ said Sansa before she caught herself. It had been many years since she had been allowed to speak of her family. They were traitors, and already the songs sung of their honorable defeat at the hands of the Lannisters. Sansa expected the Song of the Starks to turn into the new Rains of Castamere before the century was out.

 

Oberyn was looking down at her, his eyes expectant. “You had three brothers?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “Well actually- four. My father had a son; Jon Snow. My mother hated that he was raised with us.”

 

Oberyn nodded. “Likely you have heard that what your family did- raising the bastard with you- is normal in Dorne. You reside in the same buildings as my daughters and paramour, Ellaria. I think you will like her- she is fierce like you.”

 

Sansa squinted up at Oberyn, her face skeptical. “I’ve never been called fierce, my prince,” she said before continuing her walk. She hated his arm under her hand and was thankful for it as well. She didn’t have the same sense of balance that she’d once had, and her gait was jerkier. She also knew that Oberyn could feel this, which was embarrassing. What was absolutely  _ mortifying  _ was that she was grateful for his arm as she navigated gravel paths and steps and water-slicked marble. 

 

Oberyn scrunched his nose in an expression of disgust. “Northerners- and I do not just mean your people, lady, I mean every person north of Dorne- have a singular definition of fierceness. They think that to be fierce someone must rush into confrontation, to be on the offensive, yes? That is not all that it is to be fierce. To be fierce is to be passionate. Woman have passions, women have fierceness inside them as all people do. Your people, I think, did not appreciate you.”

 

_ No,  _ Sansa thought, they didn’t. They had no reason to: to the world her worth lay in her womb and little else. It wouldn’t matter if she were as wrinkled as Old Nan or as fat as Walda Frey. All she needed to do was to produce the next heir to Winterfell, and she  _ would not do it.  _

 

Sansa would not bring a child into this world to be raised or tortured by Boltons or Lannisters or Martells. She would not give birth to a babe to have it taken from her, would not let any child come into this world of pain and terror with no one and nothing to guard it. She would drink moon tea by the gallon, she would throw herself down stairs, she would find essence of Nightshade and gulp down the whole bottle. 

 

No more innocents would be hurt.

 

“You’re very kind,” she said. They were nice words, even if he  _ did  _ mean to flatter her. Though, at the moment- this peaceful, early morning moment- she wasn’t able to think of a reason this man would want to flatter her. He could sell her to the Boltons whether she liked him or not. He had a lover and children. Oberyn Martell was unique in that he, of all people, may not have any ulterior reason for trying to gain her trust. His ruling brother… that remained to be seen.

 

“What I said is not kind, Sansa. It is the truth. The fact that you mistake this for kindness tells me you are need of care.”

 

Sansa didn’t have anything to say to that. She’d found herself without answers more often here than she ever had with Ramsay. Maybe she’d learned what to expect with men like him. With this Dornishman? She was at a loss.

 

“I’d like to introduce you to Ellaria today,” said Oberyn, and Sansa noticed that he’d turned them back towards the garden of statues closest to the family apartments. “Would you be willing to take luncheon with us?”

 

_ This man wishes to introduce me to his lover more formally than most men introduce their wives,  _ Sansa thought. “I’d be honored,” she said. 

 

Oberyn smiled down at her. They were back under the bronze arch just outside the palace breezeway. “Thank you for your company, Sansa,” he said, sketching her a little bow. “Perhaps you would walk with me another morning.”

 

Sansa curtsied. “Thank you, my prince. I enjoyed your company.”

 

_ It wasn’t a lie,  _ she thought to herself as she returned to her chamber, and that was the greatest surprise of all. 

 

Soon after Sansa’s return Dyna came bustling in with a tray and a collection of what looked like gauzy silk scarves flung over one shoulder. “Good morning, lady,” she said, setting the tray down on the little iron table on the room’s narrow balcony. “Prince Oberyn and Lady Ellaria sent you these dresses with the hopes that one may find your favor for today’s noon meal.”

 

The maid laid the dresses out on Sansa’s bed, the thin bracelets on her wrist jingling. Sansa had never seen a servant wear jewelry before, and she’d never seen a servant ( _ other than Shae _ , she amended) with the habit of looking lords and ladies in the face. Sansa liked it, though she was still shocked to find that Dyna had only seen one fewer nameday than Sansa’s eighteen. Sansa felt like she was a thousand years old. It showed now, when Dyna was so excited about the clothes. Sansa knew that she’d once felt like that, but she was unable to break through a layer of… apathy? disinterest? To join in exclaiming with the maid. 

 

“They look very, ah. Small,” said Sansa. A deep orange dress and a red dress had been sent to her, colors that she’d never have picked for herself. They were the Martell colors, she realized, and they probably looked wonderful on Oberyn’s lover. 

 

“You need to see them  _ on,”  _ Dyna insisted. “There is not so much-” she waved a vague hand through the air, “Seaming,” she said. “The woman’s form, it provides the shape.”

 

Sansa ate her breakfast as Dyna bustled in and out, fetching small wooden boxes and soft little bags. The kitchens had sent her eggs and buttery flatbread and a small glass of nearly-red orange juice. It was sticky and full of pulp and tasted like the sun. 

 

“Are you finished, lady?” asked Dyna, nearly vibrating with eagerness to see her charge properly dressed. 

 

“Yes, thank you,” said Sansa with some amusement. The tray was cleared, Sansa washed her hands, and then it was time to dress. 

 

“Which shall we try, lady?” asked the smaller woman, staring happily at the dresses. 

 

Sansa bent to finger the material of one, then the other. They were both silk and exquisitely embroidered along the hems, but Sansa thought she’d be doomed to look like a corpse in both of them. The red would clash with her hair (Catelyn’s voice echoed up across the years:  _ never wear red, my baby, for it turns hair like ours orange _ ) but the deep orange dress would make her skin look sallow. 

 

Sansa wondered for one brief, uncharitable moment, if Oberyn’s lover had done this on purpose; was somehow threatened by Sansa’s presence in this place. Almost as quickly she threw away the idea, because how would this paramour know anything about her?

 

“I don’t, Dyna,” sighed Sansa. “The red, I think.” She’d rather look like she had orange hair than sickly skin. 

 

“I was hoping that would be your choice,” said Dyna, and she set to work. Sansa was efficiently undressed and when Dyna asked if she could dispose of the much-mended northern dress Sansa wavered. 

 

She had no real attachment to the dress, but she also didn’t want to let go of that last thing that was truly  _ hers.  _ The finery that was laid before her was borrowed and likely finite, and for all Sansa knew she would have to flee again sometime in the future. 

 

Dyna noticed her hesitation. “I’ll set it aside for you,” she said, folding the dress more gently than it deserved.

 

Dornish styles reminded Sansa a little of Margaery’s outfits- the shoulders were always left bare one way or another, and many of the styles she’d seen had swooping, deep backs. Even servant girls dressed like this. No corset could be worn with such a style and Sansa had noticed- discreetly- that most of the smaller women went without any bindings at all. She’d seen mothers and mothers-to-be in what looked like quarter-corsets, bands of fabric with laces that tied between the woman’s breasts. 

 

“Those, um-” she gestured to her breasts, not ashamed by her nudity but somehow not finding the words she wanted- “bands, women here wear,” she said. “The ones that lace at the front. Could I try one of those?”

 

Dyna tried to keep her face neutral, she really did, but Sansa could  _ feel  _ the suppressed eye roll. “I could find you one, lady, but you do not need them.”

 

Casually she reached out and measured Sansa’s breast by cupping it in a palm. “You have many years- decades- before needing the band.”

 

“But my- ah- you’ll see them through the dress,” she said. 

 

Dyna gave her a pitying look. “Yes, lady. Your breasts are lovely. So pale-” one soft brown finger circled Sansa’s areola. “Like a flower,” she said happily. 

 

Sansa swallowed. She didn’t mind the touch, which surprised her. It was friendly and honestly, it reminded her of Margaery all over again. “Ah. Do all Dornish women wear these styles, or…”

 

“Yes, all of us,” said Dyna, gesturing to her own dress. “But my dress is heavier. You can’t see through it unless it gets wet.” Now the little maid looked sly, her brown eyes twinkling. “Two moons ago I was sure to  ‘trip’ and spill water on myself before Daemon Sand, Prince Oberyn’s second.”

 

Sansa laughed, sitting on the bed in a pool of sunshine as naked as the day she was born. “Did it work?” she asked. 

 

Dyna sighed, her eyes going soft and focused on memories. “Yes, lady. We had a whole conversation- me looking at his eyes, his...somewhere lower. He made sure to seek me out that night.”

 

Maybe some of the maid’s own confidence rubbed off on her, because Sansa agreed. “No band today,” she said. “But I’d like if you could find one. If I’m allowed, and if it’s safe, I’d like to walk more and I’m not ready…”

 

The maid nodded. “Very good compromise,” she said, and Sansa laughed again. 

 

“Where did you grow up, Dyna?” Sansa asked as the maid tugged her off the bed. 

 

“Here, in Sunspear,” she said. She took a small jar of something out of a bag and began to rub it into Sansa’s skin. The longer she worked the softer and shinier Sansa’s skin became. The salve smelled of sandalwood and something Sansa couldn’t place.

 

“What is this?” she asked. 

 

“The oil of dried coconuts,” said Dyna. “It is very good for skin and hair.”

 

“What about your family?” asked Sansa. She hadn’t had a maid in a long time, and she could do this herself, but  _ oh  _ the other girl’s strong fingers felt good against Sansa’s muscles and skin.

 

“My mother and father work in the palace as well,” she said, moving from Sansa’s back to her front. When she began rubbing oil into Sansa’s breasts as casually as she had Sansa’s back and arse, Sansa couldn’t stop her nipples from pebbling. Dyna appreciated that, tapping one little bud smartly. 

 

“My mother serves the lady Ellaria, who you will soon meet,” she said, working her way to Sansa’s hips and thighs. “My father and brother in the stable. It is an honor to serve our princes, and if I should have children I hope they will serve as well.”

 

“I’m glad you’re happy,” said Sansa.  _ If I had been born here,  _ she thought.  _ If I had been born here, and father and mother had lived and worked side by side in the sun… my family would be alive. We would be together and alive and dining on oranges every night.  _

 

“Very happy, lady,” said Dyna. “And you will be too.”

 

“I hope so,” said Sansa as she slipped on the thin… drawers? The maid held out for her. They were cut so high over the thigh, higher than Sansa had ever seen before, and the little triangle of fabric was made of silk, not serviceable cotton. 

 

It was luxury. It was naughty. Sansa loved them. 

 

Dyna grinned at Sansa as the redhead ran a palm over her own silk-covered behind. “I told you you would be happy here,” she said. 

 

The dress was next. The skirt was loose and too short, but every dress Sansa had ever borrowed had been too short. She’d finally stopped growing, and she couldn’t measure, but she suspected she was even taller than her mother had been. The bodice… wasn’t really a bodice. One long piece of silk flowed diagonally up from her left hip to cover her right breast, and it was then pinned low on her back to the left side of the skirt. Once the other section was pinned Sansa had a cross of silk on her back, another on her front, and then a seemingly short fall of bright red material to just below her knees. She wasn’t wearing a corset, she wasn’t even wearing proper drawers, and somehow she couldn’t wait to go out and show people. 

 

_ There’s nothing like a new dress,  _ she thought. It made her happy that Ramsay hadn’t taken that from her. 

 

“Now your hair, lady,” said Dyna. 

 

“Many women here wear their hair short,” Sansa commented, sitting in the chair where she’d eaten breakfast. 

 

“Yes,” said the maid. “But I would weep if you were to cut yours. I know of no one with this color hair, lady. Well,” she amended. “No one but Prince Oberyn’s horse.”

 

“Are you comparing me to a  _ horse?” _ asked Sansa, all mock-hurt. 

 

“No, lady,” said Dyna. She had loosened Sansa’s braid and was sprinkling what felt like very fine sand into the roots of Sansa’s hair. She spent the next ...quarter of an hour? Half? Combing it through, over and over, until Sansa’s hair fell like silk. The rhythm of the comb nearly put Sansa to sleep,  and she sat bemusedly looking over the gardens as Dyna fussed and gently twisted a lock of hair back from Sansa’s face and pinned it behind her ear. 

 

“Which one?” she asked, thrusting flowers at Sansa.

 

One was yellow and the other purple. She took them, and realized the flowers were delicately painted silk. “How are these made?” she asked, looking for stitches or other telltales. 

 

“Carefully,” said Dyna. 

 

“I can’t choose,” said Sansa. She was already going to have orange hair. What did the flower color matter?”

 

“Purple,” said the maid definitively. She pinned the flower over Sansa’s ear as well, and let the rest of her hair flow free. Sansa watched as Dyna looked Sansa over critically, checking for anything she could have missed. 

 

“Well?” Sansa asked. “Will I do?”

 

“Come and see for yourself.” She took Sansa’s hand and tugged her to the other side of the chamber where a floor-length mirror hung. 

 

“Oh-” Sansa said, her eyes going wide. The first thing she could think was that her mother had been wrong. Sansa didn’t have orange hair and her skin didn’t look sallow. She looked like  _ flame.  _ Next to the dress and the indigo flower Sansa’s hair looked so red it was almost purple, the color of heartsblood. The dress shimmered as she moved, and Sansa noticed, with a jolt, that with the sun coming in from behind her the outline of her legs were visible. She was naked and she was not. She was vulnerable, but she was not. 

 

“You’re beautiful,” said Dyna simply. 

 

In that moment Sansa didn’t care if the girl was spying on her or if she secretly hated Sansa’s luck at being born a lady. She’d made Sansa feel whole and beautiful again, just for a minute, so Sansa turned and threw her arms around the shorter woman’s shoulders. “ _ Thank you,”  _ said Sansa. 

 

Dyna tugged gently on Sansa’s hair before she released her. “You are most welcome, lady. Now- sandals,” she announced, back to the business at hand. 

 

“I’d prefer to wear my boots,” said Sansa, but she knew in her heart that they’d look foolish with the too-short skirt. 

 

“But look, lady,” said Dyna, holding up the shoes. “Look at how fine the leather is.” 

 

Sansa walked back to the bed and looked at the shoes. The leather  _ was _ fine- one pair was made of dark, wide straps, and the other with many thin, tan straps that laced around the ankle. She wanted them immediately and cursed her stupid walk through the stream and her subsequent foot deformity. 

 

“It will be the boots today,” she said sadly. 

 

Dyna looked like she wanted to lecture Sansa, but settled for saying, “They’re lady’s size, so I will keep them with your dress.”

 

“Thank you, Dyna. Is it time for luncheon?” 

 

“Not yet,” said the maid. “An hour or so.”

 

Getting Sansa ready had taken longer than she’d thought. “What are your other duties, Dyna?” asked Sansa, sitting on the bed. Without a corset she could flop back against the pillows if she liked, a luxury that would have made both Septa Mordane and Catelyn squint in disapproval. 

 

“To take care of you, lady,” said Dyna, folding the orange dress and carrying it to a narrow wardrobe behind the door. “And if you do not need me, sometimes I find my mother. Or Daemon,” she added with that sly grin again. 

 

“Do you mind?” asked Sansa. ‘Or did you do something better before?”

 

Dyna looks horrified. ‘ _ No,  _ lady, I am so pleased to have this job,’ she said. “I like you. Prince Doran picked me for you, you know,” she said. 

 

“I will have to thank him for it,” said Sansa. She rose and looped her arm through the maid’s. “Would you walk with me? The grounds are so large I fear I may get lost on my own.” 

 

They wandered through the gardens and out to the stables. Sansa knew very little about horses, but she could recognize that these these were something she’d never seen before. Horses in the rest of Westeros were either bred for speed or to bear weight, either of a plow or a knight in full plate armor. These horses were fine boned and lovely.

 

“They’re lovely,” said Sansa as they walked to a fence. A mare was nursing her foal, its fluffy little tail flipping in time with his happy sucks. 

 

“Oberyn’s steed sired this one,” said Dyna. “Though he has his mother’s coloring.”

 

There was a commotion behind them and they turned to see a horse and rider thunder into the yard. The rider seemed to pull the horse to a stop without using the reins, and as the horse skidded towards the stable the rider slid down one gleaming flank and somersaulted across the ground. 

 

The rider turned out to be a woman, one about Sansa’s age, though covered in sweat and sand. She glanced at Sansa derisively before saying something to the horse who followed her into the stable as tamely as a dog. 

 

“Who was that?” asked Sansa.  _ I should be used to hatred by now,  _ she thought to herself.  _ After all, no one in Kings Landing needed to know me before condemning me.  _

 

“That was the Lady Elia,” whispered Dyna, tugging Sansa back onto the path. “She’s Lady Ellaria’s oldest daughter.”

 

_ Ah,  _ thought Sansa. “That would explain it.”

 

“Ellaria is kind,” Dyna insisted. “And the Sand Snakes- Oberyn’s daughters- they will come around.”

 

“I do not care if they like me,” said Sansa. ‘I just don’t want them to try to kill me.”  _ I’m so tired of people trying to kill me. I keep having to be lucky- they just need to get lucky once.  _

 

She didn’t say anything else until Dyna had led Sansa to Ellaria’s apartment. “She’ll be expecting you my lady.’

 

Sansa wavered in the doorway. 

 

“Go!” said Dyna. 

 

Sansa went in. This was a large atrium area, a breezeway that opened out into a private gardens. Flimsy curtains fluttered in the breeze, and plush, padded seats and sofas and chaises filed the pace. It was feminine and practical and smelled of that same climbing flower that Sansa had noticed on her early walk. 

 

Oberyn saw Sansa first, and he quickly rose from the low couch where he’d been reclined. “Sansa,” he said, walking to her and drawing her into the room. “You are lovely- like the glowing embers of a fire. Look, Ellaria,” he called to the other occupant of the room. “Look at the treasure I’ve brought you.”

 

The woman was shorter than Sansa, and curvier, her breasts heavy and lush in a saffron colored dress similar to the one Sansa now wore. When she walked her hips rocked, and Sansa wondered how  _ anyone  _ could ever suspect her of competing with this woman. 

 

“You bring the best presents,” said Ellaria, tugging Oberyn down for a kiss. Sansa hadn’t recovered from this (couples  _ never  _ kissed in public, at least not like that, not with all that carnal intent) but then Sansa was being tugged down for a kiss as well. 

 

“I am Ellaria Sand,” said the woman, her heavy hair curling down her back. “Welcome to Dorne. Oberyn was right- you are beautiful.”

 

“Thank you, Lady,” said Sansa, sinking into a curtsy. 

 

“You will call me Ellaria,” she said, taking Sansa’s hand and tugging her to a couch. “And I will call you Sansa?”

 

“Please,” said Sansa, nodding. She found herself quite close to the other woman with Oberyn across from them, his almost feline eyes warm and relaxed. 

 

“Thank you for lending me your dress,” said Sansa, running a palm over the material that covered her belly. “I’ve never seen silk so fine.”

 

Ellaria waved a hand, brushing the compliment aside. “I’m spoiled with many dresses, and I hope soon you will be too. I was going to ask later, but since it came up now… may I invite myself and my dressmaker to your rooms? I would like to see you dressed as a princess of your station.”

 

Sansa glanced at Oberyn to see if he would be providing any help. “I- ah, I’m not a princess,” she said. “I’m a lady, at most.”

 

Ellaria took Sansa’s hand. She didn’t  _ do  _ anything with it, she just held it, her hand warm around Sansa’s own. It was ...nice. Odd, but nice. She’d never really held hands before. 

 

“Most would argue that you could be a queen,” said Ellaria, and now the teasing lilt had gone from her throaty voice. “You are the heir to the north, yes? You are the blood of the First Men?”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “But-”

 

“No buts,” said Ellaria, the smile now back. “In Dorne you would be seen as a princess, and so I shall have great fun outfitting you as one.”

 

“Thank you, lady,” said Sansa, squeezing the older woman’s hand. “Call your dressmaker whenever it pleases you.”

 

Ellaria grinned over at Oberyn at this. “Oh, the manners on this one, lover. Isn’t she a delight?”

 

Sansa should have taken that as patronizing. It should have  _ been  _ patronizing, but instead she flushed with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. She hadn’t known what to expect from Ellaria, but it hadn’t been  _ this.  _ The woman was acting like she was deprived of female company when Sansa knew she had at least four daughters of her own. 

 

“I know, my love,” said Oberyn, his grin a naughtier twin of Ellarias. “Pretty manners on a pretty girl.”

 

“So,” said Ellaria, turning back to Sansa. “Tell us about yourself.”

 

Sansa didn’t know where to start- suddenly it felt so  _ stupid  _ to tell them the inane but polite things that were expected: I grew up in Winterfell, my favorite color is lavender,  _ my entire family is dead.  _

 

She was angry and lonely all at once. Somehow, at that second, it didn’t  _ matter  _ that she’d been treated with nothing but courtesy in Dorne. It didn’t matter that these two were beautiful and somehow more alive than everyone around them. 

 

Sansa’s family was dead. She’d been beaten by her betrothed in front of his court, married to a drunkard of a dwarf, leched on by a man who’d called her her mother’s name, and brutally and repeatedly raped by a man who’d bought her for the potential of her womb. Sansa had been called by many things  _ other  _ than her name, and now she didn’t know how to introduce herself because she was either overflowing with identities or empty of anything at all. 

 

Sansa didn’t know how long she sat there, staring down at her knees with her jaw clenched so tightly that her teeth hurt. 

 

Eventually Ellaria shook Sansa’s shoulder. “It is okay, sweetling,” she said. The empathy and kindness in her dark eyes makes Sansa want to weep, her anger of the previous moment forgotten. 

 

Sansa decided to tell the truth. She was being bold today- they’d already seen her nipples, why not show a sliver of her true self? “I couldn’t decide what to say,” she said. “I didn’t know if I should say that I am a used-up pawn, or a girl who once liked to sing, or a Stark or a girl who once stole a lemon and kept it under my pillow until it started to mold, for the lemon smelled like sunshine in a place that was so frequently without it.”

 

Sansa allowed Ellaria to tug her deeper into the cushions, maneuvering them until Sansa’s head rested on Ellaria’s shoulder and Ellaria’s arm was loosely around Sansa’s waist. It was very strange, all this physical intimacy. She’d been so sure that she’d never want to be touched again, but now that the caresses were coming without pain, Sansa found herself drinking in the affection and craving more. 

 

“I am glad you told us this,” said Ellaria. “Now we can start cleanly. We do not have to pretend that you have not been criminally mistreated, and you need not feign happiness for us.”

 

“It would make me happy to see you again,” said Sansa wistfully. “That was true.”

 

“Good. You should only tell us true things,” said Ellaria, her fingers gently combing through Sansa’s hair. 

 

“I will make you a promise, lady,” said Oberyn, his voice low and smooth. 

 

Sansa’s eyes shot open- how had she forgotten that he was sitting there, his body relaxed but his eyes hot?  

 

“I will tell you the truth in all things.”

 

“We will,” Ellaria corrected. 

 

“We will tell you our truths in exchange for yours. You do not need to bare your soul, do not need to spill all of your secrets. But if you ask something of us, it will be the truth you receive. Will you try to do the same?”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. Maybe she was being a fool, she’d always been too trusting, just a stupid young girl that couldn’t shake off her dreams of knights and ladies and a world where the good men won. 

 

Ellaria’s fingers continued to stroke, over and over, and Sansa found her eyes half-open, watching Oberyn as he smiled a small, handsome little smile and watched Ellaria and Sansa. This was much better, she decided. If he ended up behaving like Ramsay or Tywin or Joffrey at least he’d lured her in with honeyed words. If she was being prepared for the slaughter, at least the Dornish were fattening her up first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! LET THE SHIPPING BEGIN! 
> 
> Thank you to all who commented on the previous chapter- I'm trying to come up with a way to shoehorn more Asha into the later part of the story. 
> 
> To all of you who are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, good luck! I'll be struggling along with you. (I'm REALLY hoping to finish this fic in the next three days so I can start fresh.) 
> 
> Please let me know what you think! If you'd like to chat I'm lonelyspacebabies on tumblr.


	4. Decisions

Sansa woke the next morning restless and irritable. She felt very strange inside of herself. It was like there was a small part of her that was watching the rest, a little voice saying that she was being unreasonable, a part that _knew_ this was some sort of reaction to being free, to having time to process everything that had happened to her now that she was free.

 

That little voice was driving her mad. It had been four years since Father was beheaded in front of her. She didn’t _want_ to grieve anymore.

 

It had been three years since her time with Littlefinger, since she’d been groped and called Catelyn’s name. She didn’t want to remember Baelish’s breath anymore.

 

It had been almost three months since Ramsay and she didn’t even want to _think_ of it anymore, didn’t want to know that what he’d done to her was a part of her now, that she had to carry it with her until the end of her days.

 

Angry, bitter, and grieving Sansa ripped her shift off over her head and stood in front of her mirror in the weak light of early dawn and stared at her naked body. She didn’t see now what she’d seen yesterday with Dyna. Sansa saw her body as she might look at someone else’s, like it was a thing slightly removed from herself.

 

This body had red hair, sleek and bright on her head, curly and the color of garnets between her legs. This body had sharp hip bones and small, high breasts capped with soft shell-pink nipples. This body had feet that, without the full set of toes, stubbornly reminded Sansa of ducks’ feet, the remaining digits forming the bill. This body had thin, raised scars on her back, three in total, where the longsword used to beat her had slipped and cut into her skin. Most of the thin cuts had healed cleanly, but these had been deeper, administered after the Lannister’s greatest defeat in battle.

 

Sansa didn’t like the story this body told. She was denying that it was hers- she was just using it for a while, this soft, ruined body. She was hiding here until she grew stronger and molted like a crab, until she could be reborn into a body better suited to protecting herself.

 

Staring in the mirror wasn’t making Sansa feel any better, so she awkwardly dressed herself in the red dress from yesterday, slid her ugly feet into her boots, and stepped out into the breezeway that led to the gardens. The whispering plants failed to soothe her, so Sansa found herself walking to the stables as the sun fully rose in the sky.

 

The stables were located on one side of a massive courtyard between the Sun Tower and the Spear tower. Corrals were studded into the ground behind the barns, and Sansa assumed that outside of this area the city continued on with houses and shops and winding, narrow streets.

 

The horses outside were being fed; men and boys in brown tunics bearing the red and yellow sign of House Martell were throwing flakes of hay over the fences. Men were training in another corner of the courtyard and Sansa was sure to walk widely around them, intent on seeing the colt from yesterday before returning back to her rooms.

 

“Hello, lady,” called one of the grooms.

 

Sansa nodded at him, unsure if she was allowed here. “There was a colt,” she said. “A bay, he was out in the paddock yesterday. I wanted to see him, if I may.”

 

The lad nodded. “Here, lady,” he said, leading her into the first of three barns. It was all mares, she realized. Pregnant mares or mares and colts. The one she’d seen yesterday was in the last stall, his mother dozing with one leg cocked while the baby slept in the straw beneath her.

 

“Thank you,” said Sansa, and the boy nodded before returning to his duties.

 

This was soothing, somehow. She’d never been one for animals, other than Lady, and Sansa fondly thought about how desperately _proper_ she’d been. She hadn’t liked cats, for she’d been afraid that their claws would pick her dresses. She hadn’t liked horses for two reasons: father made all his children groom their own mount after a ride, and she’d been worried that any time in the sun would make her freckle.

 

She wasn’t content here because of some love of horses, but, she suspected, because it was a place of contentment. A place of _female_ contentment, though the ladies in question weren’t human. The barn smelled nice- of molasses and hay, and the soft sounds of horses were a soothing background compared to the bustle of the yard.

 

She’d never noticed before, but the horses here had unbelievably long eyelashes, especially the baby, who was fighting sleep to look at her.

 

“Lovely, isn’t he?” said someone, and Sansa recognized the voice as Oberyn. Was this another coincidence, or was he having her followed?

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “I was just admiring his eyelashes.”

 

Oberyn came to stand with her by the stall door, looking down at the colt who had given up and gone back to sleep. “I was hoping he’d look like my stallion,” said Oberyn, “But that is the vanity of man, is it not? We are always hoping to change things to suit ourselves. If he is a fine, healthy steed I will be a thankful man.”

 

“Is your stallion quite unique?” asked Sansa.

 

“Come see for yourself,” said Overyn. Once more he took her arm, and this time Sansa didn’t resent it. People were just… handsier in Dorne. Not in a naughty way; she’d seen couples of both sexes holding hands, servants hugging their highborn charges, men thumping each other on the back or gripping each other’s wrists in a soldier’s handshake. Besides, as he said, the man beside her had fathered eight children. He must like to touch women.

 

“Do you ride, lady?” asked Oberyn as the strolled past the second barn.

 

“I learned the basics as a child,” said Sansa, trying not to sound too ashamed. “But I was… an indoor girl.” Impulse overtook Sansa: the need to have a skill, to be even slightly independent, to be more than a decorative body hiding a girl who wanted out of it. “Do you think I could learn again? As an adult?” she asked, her fingers unconsciously digging into Oberyn’s arm.

 

“You can do anything, lady,” said Oberyn, glancing down at her. “If it pleases you, I’d like to teach you myself.”

 

Sansa looked at him. “Why?” she asked.

 

He smiled wryly down at her, just one corner of his mouth tilting. “Would you believe me if I said that I could not resist watching you learn and grow in the Dornish sun?”

 

Sansa would not. Flattery meant nothing… but he had promised not to like to her.

 

“You said you wouldn’t tell untruths,” she reminded him, and Oberyn sighed hugely.

 

“I remember that well, Sansa. It would please me to ride with you, to choose your mounts. I taught my children to ride, once upon a time, and it has been too long since I was able to put my skills to use.”

 

“You like being a father, don’t you?” Sansa asked. Most Westerosi men weren’t involved with their children, not unless the child was a firstborn son ready to learn his duties as future lord.

 

“I do, and the gods know this, for they see that I am well supplied with daughters.”

 

The pair stopped walking, pausing by a smaller shed near the very edge of the Old Palace’s walls. “This is Brasa- Ember.”

 

It was easy to see how the horse had earned his name. His coat was deep black, but his mane and tail were the color of Sansa’s own hair: a true red she’d yet to see on another living creature.

 

“Oh,” Sansa said, taking a step towards the fence.

 

“Careful,” cautioned Oberyn. “He can be… fierce.”

 

The stallion walked towards the fence, his ears pricked and tail held high. “I can see why you’d hoped for a colt,” said Sansa. It felt vain to be fascinated by this creature, by his coloring, for it was nearly a reverse of her own.

 

“When would you like to begin your lessons?” asked Oberyn.

 

“Tomorrow?” asked Sansa. “Ellaria sent me a message last night; her dressmaker comes today.”

 

Oberyn turned and looked Sansa up at down. “The dresses of my people suit you,” he said. His lips quirked and he added, “Though I suspect you’d be lovely in a sack.”

 

Sansa curtsies deeply, mockingly. “Why thank you,” she says in a high breathy voice, and not for the first time she reflects that she would have done well in a troupe of mummers.

 

Oberyn grins and loops her arm back through his. “Tomorrow morning, lady,” he said. “May I have boots sent to you? The horses I bring you will be gentle, but sturdy boots are never a bad choice.”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa, and for a moment her heart warms towards this man who does not only think of the more _interesting_ parts of a lady. “I would be grateful.”

 

He walks her back to her room, but before he takes his leave of her he takes her face between his hands and kisses her on her forehead. “For courage,” he says.

 

~~~

  


After a quick breakfast in which Sansa discovered lemon curd on toast, Dyna takes her to the baths. They’re on the other side of the apartments from the gardens, sheltered by a latticework roof twined with vines and draped with thin silk.

 

“These are reserved for women during the day,” said Dyna. Sansa noticed that Dyna had brought a change of clothes not only for Sansa, but for herself as well. “At night anyone who lives and works in the apartments may come, man or woman.”

 

Dyna led Sansa to the furthest of the six pools and set their clothes and drying sheets on a low stool. “Here,” she said, unpinning Sansa’s dress.

 

Once more Sansa was naked in front of strangers, and this time she couldn’t stop thinking about her scars. Yesterday it had been easy to forget them, because what are scars when you may be sent away to your death? Today Oberyn and Ellaria and even Dyna were speaking as though this was her home, permanent and freely given, and if she had to live amongst these people day in and day out they would _know._

 

Dyna dropped into the water beside Sansa with a little splash. _Mmm,_ she hummed. Her skin was nut brown and her nipples even darker, and Sansa was wondering why a little voice in her head had whispered _touch them_ when Dyna sank into the water and momentarily out of sight.

 

Sansa decided to dunk her hair as well, and she was rewarded with the feeling of cool water through her scalp and over her face.

 

“What do you do in the winter?” she asked Dyna while they both scrubbed at their skin with little brushed.

 

“What do you mean?” asked the maid.

 

“Do you have to bring water inside to bathe?” Sansa asked.

 

“No,” said Dyna, her brow furrowing. “We just heat these baths from below. There are great boilers beneath the brick, but we haven’t had to use them in many years.”

 

Sansa nodded and wondered why she hadn’t heard of a similar system in any other kingdom, because it was exceedingly clever. She could hear women in the other baths chatting, and when she glanced around she saw Ellaria sitting naked on the floor, her skin drying in the air as she slowly combed out her dark hair.

 

Sansa snapped her eyes back to her own bathing companion. Part of her was relieved that Ellaria was so beautiful, because it meant that only a madman would prefer Sansa to the more experienced, curvaceous woman. Oberyn didn’t seem like a madman.

 

“Ellaria is very beautiful,” whispered Dyna, scooting closer to Sansa on the underwater seat. “And Daemon says she is as fierce in bed as her daughters are at fighting.”

 

Sansa felt her jaw drop open. “She is having… relations with Prince Oberyn’s second?” she hissed.

 

For what felt like the millionth time Dyna gave Sansa a pitying look. “They sleep with whomever they choose,” she said. “It is their way. Besides- I know they’ve shared Daemon between them.”

 

Sansa’s mind went, thankfully, blank. Dyna didn’t seem to notice, so she continued to whisper about the prince’s consort. “I think she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

 

The same little part of Sansa’s mind that had been fascinated by Dyna’s nipples whispered, _me too._

 

After they bathed and rinsed it was, apparently, time to air dry. Sansa and Dyna sat on the edge of the bathing area, Dyna in the sun, Sansa in the shade. They’d each rubbed the scented coconut oil over themselves, and now that was soaking in, too.

 

Dyna reached over and ran the tips of her fingers through the curls covering Sansa’s mons. “I didn’t know hair could be this color,” she said. “I like it.”

 

Sansa gives in to the little voice. She leans over, lightly pinches Dyna’s nipple, and says, “I didn’t know these could be this color.”

 

The women grin at each other, and this feels like flirting, but Sansa hasn’t flirted in five years and this _can’t_ be flirting, can it? But right now, with this beautiful, bizarrely optimistic girl in the Dornish heat, Ramsay feels a lifetime away. Sansa knows the feeling won’t last, so she lays back to enjoy it.

 

The dressmaker comes with two assistants and what seems like a wagon load of delicate silk. Sansa has been fitted for dresses before, so the process is familiar, but what isn’t familiar is that _once again_ Sansa finds herself naked except for those silk half-drawers.

 

“Before we get to the fun bit, she needs two dozen pantalettes and a breast band.”

 

An assistant jots this down, but the dressmaker shakes her head. Ellaria said that Iella was from Lys, and that she could be even more temperamental than the Dornish. Ellaria said this fondly, and that red-hot voice asked, _Have they gone to bed together? How does a woman bed another woman?_ Fingers, Sansa had decided.

 

“She does not need a band,” Iella declared. “Look-” she grabs up a bolt of pure-white silk, unrolls a bit, and holds it over Sansa’s breasts. Through the materials her nipples look almost opalescent, a silvery pink. “Unique,” the seamstress declares.

 

Sansa has to admit that if showing your nipples is the style, it _is_ rather fetching. She almost likes it, here in Ellaria’s solar where the only eyes on Sansa are female. But one day she may wish to go beyond the stables, which-

 

“I’ll be riding,” she announced. “And the bouncing will ache.”

 

The seamstress has no way to refute _that_ immutable truth, and so she’s fitted for a breast band.

 

Unlike the staid, structured northern styles that Sasa is used to, Dornish styles are fluid, and this fluidity apparently means that there are no patterns from which she can choose. She chooses materials, and as she does the styles are described to her: _This will tie on top of your shoulders, this one covers your front but not back, this one shall have a front panel that hangs from a collar, this one shall tie behind your neck._

 

The materials are all soft and lightweight, as are the dress designs. Sansa’s streak of boldness continues, because she orders the while as well as bolder colors she would never have chosen before: Indigo, cobalt, emerald and a red dress of her own. Ellaria orders her shawls, and as the dressmaker leaves and Sansa dons her dress again a bootmaker appears at the request of Prince Oberyn.

 

Sansa has dreaded this moment. She knows that people have looked at her feet, she’s been naked too much recently ( _has it only been three days?_ she wonders) to deny it, but not everyone is _focused_ on her feet.

 

The bootmaker isn’t bothered, or at least pretends not to be, and he traces her feet and is soon gone. Sansa had blushed the entire time the charcoal stick had been tracing her feet, and she refused to meet the boot maker’s eye afterwards.

 

“Tell me,” said Ellaria after he leaves, drawing Sansa down onto a couch. “Tell me about riding and the boots and your toes.”

 

Ellaria has them arranged at angles, Sansa’s back against the other woman’s left side, Ellaria’s arm wrapped around Sansa’s waist and resting on her hip. She decided to start with the easiest answer. “I ran into Oberyn when I went for a walk this morning. He showed me his stallion and and I asked of someone could reteach me to ride. He said he wanted to do it himself. I thought… I don’t have a single skill that helps keep me alive, Ellaria. I can’t cook or hunt or kill or ride, and most of the time that’s okay, but…”

 

“Good,” said Ellaria. “Have your lessons, and insist on nobody other than Oberyn. Every woman should be able to flee to safety or ride to a lover.”

 

Sansa liked thinking about it that way, too. She wasn’t only learning to ride so she could flee. Maybe someday she’d like to ride _towards_ something.

 

A lock of Ellaria’s curly hair had fallen over Sansa’s shoulder, and she twirled it as she moved onto Ellaria’s next question. “Oberyn wanted me to have sturdier boots to ride.”

 

“A wise man indeed,” said Ellaria, her fingers rubbing gentle patterns over Sansa’s hip.

 

“My feet… I grew up in Winterfell,” she said. “A summer baby. But it can snow anytime that far north, even in the summer. Now that’s it’s autumn there’s a permanent layer of snow on the ground and ice over the streams.’

 

Sansa took a deep breath and collected her thoughts. “I was married to the Bolton Bastard,” she said. “And he took _everything_ that was never his.”

 

Ellaria knew what that meant. She didn’t need to be told.

 

“I had a chance one night. Just a chance, but I wrapped myself up in a blanket from my bed and lept off the walls of Winterfell.”

 

Ellaria gasped, and her fingers tightened on Sansa. “There was a snowdrift,” she said. “It knocked the wind out of me, but I didn’t break anything. Ramsay had hounds, dogs he’d feed on every third day so they were always a little bit hungry. I knew he would send them after me, so I ran into the woods and broke the ice on the stream and walked until the sun came up.’

 

“Water makes it hard for dogs to track someone,” said Sansa. “So I walked. And when I couldn’t stand it anymore I got out of the stream and kept walking. Eventually someone took me in a wagon to Hornwood, House, but by then… I think it was too late. I had the dead toes removed at the Citadel, only an apprentice did it because I didn’t have any money, and the half toe still hurts when I walk on it.”

 

Ellaria sniffled, and Sansa realized she was crying. “Don’t cry,” she said, bewildered and upset. “Don’t cry.”

 

She turned and awkwardly kissed the woman’s cheek, which tasted of tears.

 

“You should _not_ be afraid of this,” said Ellaria, her voice strong. She turned Sansa and wriggled until Sansa’s face was pressed into the shadowy softness of Ellaria’s neck. “You should walk proudly everywhere you go, and when you hurt someone will carry you, for you are _whole._ You are brave and wonderful, and that’s all anyone should see when they look at your lovely feet.”

 

Sansa rubbed her nose along the bottom of Ellaria’s jaw. This was comforting, as being held by Catelyn was, but this was ...different. Better.

 

“I don’t like looking at them,” she said. “It reminds me of how desperate I was. I would have _crawled,_ ” she whispered. “I would have crawled or begged or stolen. I would have whored myself if it got me away from that man. I didn’t, I just lost some toes… but i feel like he took my dignity all the same.

 

Ellaria didn’t say anything then. She just held Sansa tightly, stroking her hair and eventually she whispered that Sansa was _brave_ and _strong_ and _wonderful_ and _unbreakable._

 

“Oberyn said almost the same thing,” Sansa muttered into Ellaria’s skin. “He said I came to Dorne unbent, unbowed, and unbreakable.”

 

“And I was right,” said Oberyn’s voice from the door. Sansa didn’t move to look at him. She’d decided not to be embarrassed about this, she was comfortable, and she wasn’t sure how much he’d overheard.

 

Ellaria lifted her shoulder so she could look down at Sansa’s face. “May I tell him your secrets?” she asked. “He will love you no less than I, I swear it.”

 

Sansa thought it was early to speak of love, but she whispered, “You can tell him,” before rolling over and promptly falling asleep.

 

~~~

 

Sansa woke early again, and when she did buff breeches and her new boots were sitting at the bottom of her bed, along with a rolled cloth that turned out to be a breast band. The band was wonderful- soft across her breasts, easy for her to put on alone, and it flattened her tits to her breastbone admirably. The breeches were next, then her dress, then the boots.

 

The boots… the leather was heavy but soft, and once they were on they laced halfway up her calf. The wonderful and unanticipated part was the padded weight where her toes should be. It absorbed that empty space without chafing her skin, and Sansa imagined that the even weight would help hold her foot straight in the stirrup.

 

Her step was light as she walked out to the stables. There was a breeze coming in from the ocean, and Sansa could smell the salt.

 

“Good morning, beautiful lady,” said Oberyn when she arrived in the courtyard. He was in breeches and a tunic as opposed to his normal long split coat.

 

“Good morning, handsome prince,” said Sansa, at charity with the world. “Thank you for the boots,” she said. “They’re… they’re wonderful.”

 

Oberyn grinned at her. “You are a too easy to please, lady. You’ll make me want to spoil you.”

 

Sansa just grinned. Oberyn led her to the second stable, where a small dappled mare had already been saddled. “This is Nel,” he said. “She is sixteen and has given us five healthy colts. She’ll take good care of you.”

 

Sansa stroked the mare’s nose as Oberyn went deeper into the barn. “Hello, Nel,” she whispered. “I’m Sansa. I’m nervous, you understand, so as one lady to another, will you please go easy on me? I can promise treats if you do.”

 

Nel didn’t seem by Sansa’s speech one way or the other. She snuffled at Sansa’s dress for treats, and when she didn’t find any, she went back to flicking her tail.

 

Oberyn reappeared with a long, soft rope coiled over one shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said, he walked off without checking to see if Sansa and Nel were following. Sansa hurriedly untied the reins, held them a few inches below the horse’s chin, and tentatively walked forward. Nel walked when Sansa walked and stopped when Sansa stopped, seemingly unperturbed by this odd game.

 

Oberyn led her to a small paddock behind the second barn. It was empty and quiet, and when Sansa and Nel walked in he closed the gate after them. “Eventually you will learn to mount from the ground,” he said. “But for today-” he cupped his hands and knelt, apparently waiting for Sansa to step into his palm.

 

She did, blushing all the while. “I’ve never ridden astride,” she said once she was settled.

 

“No?” Oberyn asked, clipping the lead line to the horse’s bridle. “Again: I must conclude that northerners do not like their women. It is much more dangerous to ride astride.”

 

“I think the men wish to be the only things between their ladies’ legs,” said Sansa dryly. Oberyn laughed, and all the horse did was flip a lazy ear his way. They walked for a few minutes, Oberyn leading the short little horse, until Sansa’s hips began to relax into the motion.

 

“Good,” said Oberyn. “Now pick up the reins.”

 

Sansa did, turning her pinkies down towards the horse’s mane and trying to find that happy balance between contact with Nel’s mouth and not just yanking on her.

 

“Ah,” said Oberyn. “I forget that you northerns rein with two hands.”

 

Nel had stopped moving as soon as Sansa arranged the reins, and Oberyn walked from the center of the ring to the horse. “You are right handed, so you will rein with the left,” he said. “Loose, see? She knows her job, don’t you wonderful girl”

 

“But how do I steer?” asked Sansa. She was tensing, a little, because she’d hoped that this would be mostly practicing what she’d already learned, not relearning from the ground up.

 

“If you wish to go right, keep your hand low and move it to the right. To go left, the same to the left.”

 

His hands were warm on hers as he demonstrated.  

 

“Alright,” said Sansa. “I understand.” Tentatively she nudged Nel’s sides with her heels, and obligingly the horse walked on. When she made it towards the fence Sansa moved her hand left, and obligingly the horse plodded in that direction.

 

“This is so you can fight, isn’t it,” Sansa said to Oberyn as she passed him by. “With your dominant hand.”

 

“Yes,” said Oberyn. “It is a skill with many purposes. There are warriors across the sea, horse-lords who use no reins and seemingly commune with the mounts they ride.”

 

Sansa didn’t have anything to say about that. She was thinking about keeping her hips loose and guiding Nel in figure eights and small circles and large circles. Oberyn seemed content to watch her, and after some time Sansa found herself smiling. “I like her,” she announced when she dismounted, making the short drop to the ground.”

 

“You have good taste,” said Oberyn, opening the gate again. “She is one of the gentlest creatures in the city.”

 

They all walked back to the stable, where Sansa pressed a kiss to Nel’s nose before handing her off to the stable boy.

 

“Thank you,” said Sansa to Oberyn as they meandered back towards her chamber. “I know that was boring for you.”

 

Oberyn heaved a huge sigh. “Listening to you disparage yourself is growing boring. Watching you smile could never be boring. Do not judge how I spend my time,” he chided.

 

Sansa avoided his eyes. She’d been taught to graciously receive gifts, and the time of a prince was certainly a gift.

 

“What will you do with your day?” she asked, happy to change the subject.

 

“In the mornings I ride or train or work with you. I speak with my brother while he is rested and well. I usually have luncheon with Ellaria and the girls, and then in the early afternoon it is my turn to watch them.”

 

He grinned. “Ellaria likes me to tire the little ones out so they sleep peacefully.”

 

Because Sansa was at peace with this little slice of the world, she even wrapped her _other_ arm around Oberyn’s, hugging him to her, and momentarily let her head rest on his shoulder. She’d last walked like this with… Margary, she realized. And that had been four years ago.

 _Thank goodness for the affectionate Dornish,_ she thought to herself. “How old are you daughters?” she asked.

 

“Alas, my littlest are not so small anymore,” said Oberyn. “And Ellaria will bear no more children. Loreza is seven, Dorea ten and two, and Obella ten and five. Obella has already begun to ask if she can move into Obara’s household with my other snakelings.”

 

He said this sadly but with acceptance- the wry amusement of a man with daughters grown away from his guidance.

 

“And what do you do with Loreza and Obella?” asked Sansa. She’d straightened again, but as she’d done so Oberyn had let her hand slide from his forearm into his palm, and now they were walking the gardens with their fingers entwined. For such a simple gesture, Sansa was finding it very distracting.

 

“We play, we shop, we ride and fight and argue,” he said.

 

Sansa’s parents had done few of those things with her, and when they had it had been on a schedule. She’d always assumed that Ned and Catelyn had been the best of parents, but then Sansa had never been to Dorne.

 

“May I meet your children someday?” Sansa asked on impulse.

 

“Of course,” said Oberyn. “I was not hiding them from you, or you from them. I was only trying to give you time to rest.”

 

Sansa thought about that. “I used to _hate_ it when Mother assigned me chores, because I was too _beautiful_ and _refined_ for such things,” she said, gesturing to herself like a mummer would on a stage.

 

Oberyn grinned at her.

 

“Then at court, in the Keep… well, I just sat in my room. I couldn’t leave because Joffrey might see me, and I had no friends other than Margaery to talk with. I was just alone and still for hours. Then I was with Littlefinger, purposeless, then with Ramsay…

 

“I’ve have enough of sitting quietly, day in and day out,” she said.

 

Oberyn stopped walking, took her face in his hands, and pressed a kiss to the middle of her forehead. Sansa decided she didn’t care that people could see them. The just smiled at each other, then resumed their walk.

 

“Explore where you like,” said Oberyn. “Nobody shall keep you as a pretty prisoner again.”

 

When they reached Sansa’s chamber door she curtsied deeply, as though she’d just danced with him at a royal feast. “Thank you, my prince,” she said, and she could still feel herself blushing.

 

He bowed just as deeply. “Until later, princess,” he said. Sansa wandered into her room where Dyna waited, thinking all the while of being called _princess_ by a man with a low and lilting voice.

 

~~~

 

The next day Oberyn put her on Nel again, but this time he didn’t take them to the riding ring. “You won’t be riding in circles,” he said, leading Nel through the courtyard. “So why practice in circles?”

 

Instead Sansa rode through the streets of Sunspear with Oberyn walking at her knee. It felt _wrong_ to have a crown prince walking beside her like this, but he seemed to enjoy himself. Everyone knew him, waving and calling, so he waved and called back. Sansa practiced guiding her horse around carts and people, learned not to tense up every time a cat or a child darted across the street ahead of her, and, most importantly, learned to _look around_ and not just stare nervously at the back of Nel’s head.

 

Sunspear had been as different from King’s Landing as it was possible to be. The layered walls had been tall and white, with shops and houses and tenant buildings all rammed in together. There was a whole street of open air shops, and the air had smelled heavy and hot with spices and roasting meat. Children had played freely instead of larking in the mud for dropped buttons or coins or teeth, and the air of desperation that had clung to Fleabottom like the stink of shit didn’t hang in the air here.

 

This time instead of dismounting by facing her horse, Sansa flung her leg over and slid down into Oberyn’s arms. “Thank you,”she said, and without thinking she pressed her lips to his.

 

Before her thoughts could skip right through embarrassment and into _I’m going to die for this_ Oberyn laughed and hugged her to him. “Happiness suits you,” he whispered into her ear.

 

It did, as Dorne also suited her.

 

~~~

 

Later that morning, as she and Dyna soaked in one of the large outdoor baths, Sansa asked, “What do the noble ladies here do all day? In the north women are responsible for seeing to food storage and supply runs and educating children and managing the household as well as the keep. I feel like a layabout.”

 

“You should be a layabout,” said Dyna stoutly. “Though some women manage these things if they wish. Other ladies spend their days training, or making things if they are skilled. They ride, but most tend their children.”

 

“Does Dorne not have teachers?” asked Sansa, closing her eyes and resting her head against the stone of the pool. It was hot again, though Dyna was quick to reassure Sansa that this was nothing compared to a humid day in high summer.

 

“They do, but women here guard their children jealously, for why would a woman choose to have a child if she does not wish to raise it and teach it and play with it herself?”

 

“Many women don’t have a choice in the matter,” said Sansa. “They’re busy, or they didn’t want the children at all.”

 

“That is wrong,” said Dyna simply, and Sansa felt the other girl’s wet fingers slide over the skin of Sansa’s belly.

 

“How do merchants’ wives rear their children?” asked Sansa, pretending to ignore how those soft fingers had moved up to stroke the underside curve of her breast.

 

“They send their children to stay with aunts or cousins during the day, or they carry them in slings, or they send their children to the palace to play in the water gardens.”

 

“Water gardens?”

 

Sansa can’t believe what Dyna describes to her- an ancient, sprawling palace of breezeways and rambling apartments all built around clear saltwater pools in which all Dornish children are free to play naked with one another.

 

 _There it is,_ thought Sansa. _There’s the reason why the Dornish are...the Dornish. It’s hard to be ashamed of nakedness when you played that way, and it’s hard to feel superior to someone who splashed with you in the pool._

 

“I never learned to swim,” Sansa commented. Now Dyna looked shocked, and Sansa explained, “It’s always too cold in the north, even in summer. We would frequently get frosts and little snowfalls.”

 

Dyna just shook her head and ran her palm up Sansa’s side.

 

~~~

  


That night Sansa laid awake in her bed, thinking. She’d been in Dorne for a sum total of four days, and yet already things felt so _different._ They felt better, certainly, and that made Sansa feel guilty.

 

 _I don’t have the right to be happy here,_ she thought. I’m the last of my family, I should avenge them. I’m the heir to North, I should reclaim it. I’ve been engaged- and here she has to go back and count on her fingers, blushing in the dark- four times, married twice, and loved by none. _By what right am I allowed to linger here?_

 

She broods on this a while before her mind drifts to the dinner she’d just shared with Ellaria and Oberyn. They hadn’t talked about much important, just laughing and talking or even sitting in companionable silence and sipping on wine. What Sansa couldn’t seem to forget was how Ellaria kept feeding Sansa with her fingers, _and Sansa kept encouraging it._

 

It had started with a bit of hare. Sansa had been laughing about something and Ellaria had just held a little bite of meat against Sansa’s mouth. Sansa, startled, had taken the morsel with her fingers. A few minutes later a sliver of asparagus has brushed against Sansa’s lips, and this time she’d taken it, confused. Oberyn didn’t even watch, so Sansa assumed it was normal, and when Ellaria continued to feed her, all the way through dessert, Sansa had gone along with it. Then after dinner, as Sansa said her goodnights, Ellaria had kissed her as casually as anything before wishing Sansa sweet dreams.

 

The oddest thing was that despite the lemon biscuits, _Sansa could still taste the salt of Ellaria’s skin._

 

It wasn’t wrong to be attracted to a woman here. It would be okay- Ellaria had visited King’s Landing, and even though her reception had been cold no one had harmed her. Still… Sansa still felt like it was wrong to be almost _eager_ for touch right now. She should want to join a sept, to lock herself away from the world where no one could touch her again. That’s what would _make sense_ after Ramsay and yet…

 

And yet Sansa could still feel Dyna’s fingers exploring her skin in the pool, she could still feel Oberyn’s smiling lips against hers, and she could taste Ellaria’s skin.

 

She was broken, she decided. Ramsay _had_ broken her, had made her desperate for affection and soft touches. She thought about this a little more. It was okay to have lovers here in Dorne, and Dyna and Ellaria seemed willing.

 

Oberyn had her worried. She’d only known pain to come with cocks, and while he didn’t seem like a cruel man (far from it) she didn’t know if she was still the same… _there…_ after Ramsay. Besides, Oberyn was infamous for fathering children, and even though bastardy was apparently not a consideration here in Dorne, she wouldn’t be welcomed home in the North with a bastard on her hip.

 

Yes- she was a broken, wanton creature with skin that shivered to be touched. Ellaria and Dyna liked to touch her. If she wanted, and _they_ wanted, she’d let the touching play out as it would.

 

Satisfied, Sansa rolled onto her side and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh! I'm working on a different ASoIaF fic for NaNoWriMo (Jaime x Arya, my two eternal faves) and I seriously don't even know what day it is anymore. I'm sorry this chapter wasn't as heavily edited as usual, please forgive me!
> 
> As always, a big thank you to those who read and/or comment on my work! It's absolutely lovely getting to interact with you. See you next week, and best wishes <3


	5. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lessons.  
> Snakelings.  
> A kiss.

The next morning Sansa once more rode Nel through the streets of Sunspear with Oberyn by her side. When they returned to the corral he asked her to trot, and Sansa bounced in the saddle uncomfortably for about forty seconds before the horse gave up and went back to a walk. 

 

“We’ll try something new tomorrow,” Oberyn announced after they’d returned Nel to her stall. “But as for this afternoon, would you like to meet the smallest Sands?”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa, surprised. “I would.”

 

“Then come to Ellaria’s chambers after luncheon,” he said. 

 

As had become Sansa’s habit, she asked Dyna for any and all information. 

 

“You’ll be meeting Obella, Dorea, and Loreza,” said Dyna as they bathed. Today she had Sansa’s feet in her lap, her strong fingers rubbing up and down the arch of Sansa’s foot, and she liked it so much she couldn’t even find it in herself to be embarrassed about her toes. 

 

“What are they like?” asked Sansa. She’s a little bit worried; if these little Sands take after their older sister, she will not be welcome in the least. 

 

“Obella is very much like her mother,” said Dyna. “Fierce, but fair. She loves to swim, but is also happy to spend time indoors. Dorea is going to love you, as she is the only one of Oberyn’s daughters to act like a northern lady. If you agree to style her hair in a courtly way she will be your greatest friend.”

 

Sansa laughed. “She sounds like me at two and ten.”

 

“Loreza is the smallest, and every inch a tiny warrior.”

 

_ Arya,  _ Sansa thought. She’d been thinking of her lost sister more and more during her time in Dorne, because here was a place where her wolf-sister would have flourished. She’d been awful to her sister when they’d been together, cruel just for fun, to ingratiate herself with Jeyne and the others. 

 

“I had a sister like that,” said Sansa. She pulled her feet out of Dyna’s hands and instead tugged the Dornish woman’s feet into her own. She hadn’t done this before, but Dyna seemed to enjoy Sansa’s clumsy attempts. 

 

“What if they don’t like me?” Sansa whispered after a few minutes of rubbing her thumbs against the tendons in Dyna’s feet. 

 

She shifted, coming to wrap her arms around Sansa. “Why does it matter?” she asked. 

 

“Because…” Sansa thought about it harder and told herself  _ be brave. “ _ Because I want Ellaria,” she whispered, “And I want them both to continue liking me.”

 

Dyna pressed a kiss to Sansa’s temple (she was collecting so many kisses but not giving any of her own, she’d need to fix that) and nodded. “I think you are being silly to worry about this. The girls sometimes hate their teachers, each other, and even their parents, and this hasn’t made Oberyn or Ellaria love those people any less.”

 

Sansa didn’t feel better.  _ I want them to love me,  _ she thought.  _ But I can’t tell you, because I want  _ you  _ to love me as well.  _

 

Possibly for the first time in her life, Sansa had worried more than the situation actually warranted. A cat had had kittens in the garden three weeks previously, and Oberyn was taking the girls to see the kittens. They were much more interested in the babies than in Sansa, who was content to sit on a bench in the shade by Oberyn. 

 

“There’s nothing like kittens or puppies,” she said, remembering the Stark siblings’ reaction to the direwolf pups. 

 

“Nothing like babies,” said Oberyn. Sansa nodded, but inside she was thinking,  _ Yes, I’ve chosen right. He’d want babes you aren’t willing to give; better to be friends.  _

 

Loreza chose that moment to wander over. “Why aren’t there hunting cats?” she asked, her eyes intensely focused on her father. They were Oberyn’s eyes, deep set and just slightly tilted; it was said that all of his children wore his eyes. 

 

“We do not have cats that large, and I am glad,” he said. “Because I think if there were cats that large, we would be  _ their  _ prey.”

 

“There are lions in Essos,” Sansa volunteered, and Loreza’s eyes flicked to her suspiciously. 

 

“How do you know?” she asked. 

 

Sansa shrugged. “My maester told me. Lions are very large cats, but heavier. Not as lean as the mousers here.”

 

Oberyn nodded and wrapped an arm around Sansa’s shoulders. “What Sansa says is true. I saw a lion pelt once when I adventured.”

 

Loreza thought about this. “I would like to ride a lion,” she said. “It would be an excellent mount, because it could leap onto other people’s horses.” 

 

Sansa didn’t shudder at that image, but she came close. 

 

“That would be a brilliant strategy,” said Oberyn. 

 

Now Dorea joined the conversation. She had a small calico kitten cradled to her chest and she was stroking it with the tip of an index finger. “That’s stupid,” she told her sister. “Riding a lion into battle means he’d eat you as soon as you fell off.”

 

“You’re stupid!” Loreza shouts, and Sansa feels like she’s taken a quarrel to the chest because  _ oh suddenly she’s thirteen and getting ready to leave home for good and all she can think is that her younger sister is ugly and an embarrassment and should just stay home with her stupid dreams of being a knight.  _

 

“I had a direwolf when I was a girl,” said Sansa on impulse.

 

Four sets of intense, deep set eyes turned to look at her. Obella came closer as well, two white kittens nestled in the fabric of her skirt. She looked so like her mother, and Sansa talked of finding the direwolves and their legends and how big Lady had grown to be even though she was only a baby herself. 

 

“Where is she?” asked Loreza, and Sansa realized that she’d made yet another idiot mistake, because now she had to tell these girls about death. 

 

Sansa snuck a look at Oberyn, who nodded. 

 

“She died,” said Sansa. “An… evil king, he declared that she was too frightening for his scared little son, and he had Lady killed.”

 

Loreza jumped to her feet. “I’ll avenge Lady!” she said. 

 

Sansa smiled a little. “She’s been avenged. The evil king and the cowardly prince both died, too.”

 

“Do you think there are any more direwolves?” asked Obella. 

 

“I don’t know,” said Sansa. “They’re magical creatures, and they mostly hide from humans.”

 

“Well, if there  _ are  _ any more, I want to ride one of  _ those  _ into battle,” said Loreza, and then she was galloping around the garden, parrying with an invisible spear. 

 

“What was court like, Lady Sansa?” asked Dorea, still cuddling her kitten of choice. 

 

“It was-” she caught Oberyn’s eye and quickly looked away. Sansa knew Ellaria had told him her story, she’d given her permission, but they hadn’t  _ talked  _ about it. Having him know this way was strange. He knew her feelings, but  she didn’t know about his, and Sansa wondered if she’d made a mistake. 

 

“The city was beautiful,” she said. “And I saw amazing things- I even snuck into the catacombs beneath the Throne Room to see the skull of Balerion the Dread.”

 

The girls gasped and looked suitably impressed, and Sansa’s mind raced ahead, trying to find a nice way to word this. 

 

“The opening of his mouth was wide enough for two horses to have walked through comfortably.”

 

“And the people?” asked Doreah? “Were there knights?” 

 

The girl’s innocence made Sansa want to rend her clothes and tear at her hair, so she took Oberyn’s hand (and ignored his surprise, for this was the first time she’d reached for  _ him  _ for support) and said, “No, sweetling. There weren’t any knights there for me.”

 

Dorea thought about that. “Dorne has knights, and Essos does too. Maybe I’ll look there first.”

 

Oberyn scooped up his second youngest. “Any man you marry must first beat me,” he said, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers. 

 

“Papa,  _ nobody  _ can beat you,” she said. 

 

“Then no man is good enough,” said Oberyn. He stood, putting Dorea back on her feet. “Come on, snakelings. Let’s show Lady Sansa the bazaar.”

 

Loreza squealed, Dorea was quick to return her kitten to the mother, and Obella asked, “May I have one of the kittens for inside?”

 

“No,” said Oberyn. “Then everyone would want pets and my life would be a menagerie in truth.”

 

“Obara would let me have a kitten,” said the fifteen year old mulishly. 

 

“Then when you are sixteen you can move into Obara’s household and have as many kittens as you like,” he said. 

 

As a group they walked through the streets of Sunspear. The girls showed no fear; they darted up to any street vendor or merchant to begin an enthusiastic conversation. Dorea asked Sansa a million questions about court, and each one exhausted Sansa a little more because here was a  _ child,  _ she couldn’t know how it cost Sansa not to scream that she’d rather die than return to the Red Keep. 

 

Loreza made Sansa smile. She wanted to look at heavy leather vests and spears and food, and only on the latter could Sansa agree. Oberyn bought them honey-roasted chicken legs and they munched and explored, wiping their greasy fingers on their sleeves and laughing at Obella’s pained expression. 

 

By the time they returned to Ellaria’s rooms Sansa was ready to collapse. She hadn’t done that much walking in months, since… well, she probably hadn’t done that much walking ever. Her feet ached and her head was spinning with the things she hadn’t said. 

 

Loreza and Dorea babbled to their mother about their day, while Obella retreated through an archway that led to the bed chambers. 

 

“A moment more?” asked Oberyn as Ellaria drew Dorea down onto the sofa beside her.

 

“Of course,” said Sansa. 

 

“You would not go to the baths with me, would you?” asked Oberyn, his voice wry. 

 

Sansa stiffened, and Oberyn explained, “I only wished for you to soak your feet in the water. It could soothe them.”

 

“ _ Oh,”  _ breathed Sansa. She now wanted to soak her feet more than anything in the world. “Could we make sure the baths are empty first?” 

 

“Of course,” said Oberyn. They walked slowly through the halls, and Sansa was too tired to be embarrassed by how much she slowed Oberyn down. 

 

He stuck his head around the corner and then smiled back at her. “All clear,” he said. They walked to a pool and Sansa sat at the edge and unlaced her boots. She didn’t have stockings anymore, and now, on top of everything, her poor feet had blisters. 

 

Unfortunately for Sansa, she had been so concerned with her own feet that she hadn’t noticed (and later she really would ask herself how she  _ hadn’t noticed)  _ that Oberyn had peeled off his clothing and had dropped down into the pool. The water was opaque, and she couldn’t see anything  _ vital,  _ but still- the girl who thought she’d never blush again went crimson. 

 

The water was cool on her feet and felt good enough to stay despite Oberyn’s complete lack of modesty. 

 

“May I see?” Oberyn asked. “Your feet?”

 

Sansa squinted at him. 

 

“I trained as a maester,” said Oberyn. “Did you know? I spent three years in the Citadel, and forged more than a few links on my chain.”

 

“I didn’t know,” said Sansa. Cautiously she extended one leg towards Oberyn. He took it, one hand supporting her ankle, the other gently pressing against the now-healed but still lumpy skin where toe had once met foot. 

 

“This was well done,” he said. “It has healed cleanly. You have feeling everywhere?” he asked. 

 

“Yes,” Sansa said. “Sometimes too much.”

 

Oberyn reached through the water for her other foot. “They took only half a toe,” he said. “Is this what hurts the most?”

 

Sansa nodded. 

 

“It isn’t good to cut through bone,” said Oberyn, clearly in maester mode. “It must be taken at the joint, or it doesn’t heal cleanly inside.” He was quiet. “We could remove it fully for you.”

 

Sansa jerked her foot away from him. 

 

Oberyn didn’t seem offended. “Just think about it,” he said. “If it becomes too painful, there is a way to fix it.”

 

Sansa just nodded again. Oberyn seemed content with her company. He picked up a scrub brush and began rubbing it over his arms, which Sansa took as her cue to close her eyes. She heard Oberyn chuckle. 

 

“Thank you for spending the day with me and my children. I think they enjoyed hearing your stories.”

 

Sansa shrugged. Her stories had exhausted her. Dorea’s hope had exhausted her. “Obella is fifteen,” said Sansa with bewilderment. “Three years younger than I am, and yet I feel ancient in comparison.”

 

Water sloshed but Sansa didn’t open her eyes, not even when she felt warm hands slide up the back of her legs to cup her behind the knees. Her remaining toes were brushing against a warm stomach, and she  _ wasn’t going to look.  _

 

“You’ve suffered enough for more than one lifetime,” said Oberyn. “I know that to live is to suffer, but your road has been cruel. Thank you for your patience with my Dorea the Dreamer.”

 

“She’s me,” said Sansa.  _ No- don’t you cry. Don’t do it.  _ She took a deep, hitching breath. “And Loreza is like Arya, so much like Arya.”

 

Warm lips were on her cheek, and Sansa realized Oberyn was kissing away a tear. She opened her eyes: a wide expanse of bronze skin over lean, hard muscles. Dark hair waving as it dried, and soft, warm eyes looking into hers. 

 

“It is okay to cry for your lost sister, princess,” he said. “I still cry for mine.”

 

~~~

  
  


The next day Oberyn had a new idea in mind for Sansa’s riding curriculum. A larger, stockier liver gelding was standing in Nel’s usual place. Sansa eyed the horse with suspicion.

 

“Your muscles have started to become accustomed to riding astride, so now we work on technique,” said Oberyn. 

 

“But why not on Nel?” asked Sansa. She’d gotten attached to the gentle mare. 

 

“Because Nel is not large enough for both of us,” he said. By now he knew what Sansa’s squinty eyed silences meant. “If you have to know,” he said quietly, stepping closer to Sansa with a smirk. “I’ve never fucked a girl while on a horse, and I don’t plan on trying now.”

 

Sansa rolled her eyes, and when Oberyn boosted her onto the peculiar quilted saddle she scooted closer to his withers to give Obern room to mount.  

 

As soon as Oberyn was on the horse Sansa knew in her gut that this was  _ terrible  _ idea. She was on the horse, yes, and  _ also  _  between Oberyn’s hard thighs with her arse against his groin. “I can’t reach the stirrups,” she complained. 

 

“That’s the point,” said Oberyn. He wrapped his arms around Sansa to take the reins in his left hand. “You’re going to learn to move with the horse today, to not be so stiff in the saddle. I didn’t think you’d ride alone without the stirrups, so here I am at your disposal.”

 

Sansa huffed a breath and Obern nudged the gelding out of the barn. 

 

“Relax,” he said. 

 

Sansa  _ wanted  _ to snap:  _ I’d be able to relax if I wasn’t so worried about your prick against my arse!  _ But she decided that might be a tad too provocative. 

 

“Where are we going?” she asked. 

 

“To the sea,” said Oberyn. 

 

Before living in the Red Keep Sansa had never seen the sea. In King’s Landing it had battered away against high cliffs. In White Harbor the icy spray felt like needles against her skin, but here… here it rolled and played, the air smelling of salt, the waves rhythmically kissing the shore. Oberyn trotted the horse through the spray, which the horse seemed to enjoy, and by the time he turned them to head home the little hairs around Sansa’s face were coming free from their braid. 

 

“Thank you,” said Sansa when Oberyn lifted her from the horse. 

 

He smiled. “It’s never a chore to spend time by the sea with a beautiful lady.”

 

The next day was the same, and the days after, and by the time Sansa had been in Sunspear for two weeks she was comfortable in Oberyn’s lap, his arms around her. They rode by the sea every day, and Sansa had come to love the smell and the sound. 

 

One morning it was cooler, and just a little bit stormy, with mountains of dark clouds over the horizon. It made the spray of the ocean white and frothy, and something about it called to Sansa’s heart. It must have spoken to Oberyn as well, because he put his lips to Sansa’s ear and whispered, “Hang on, princess,” before kicking the horse into an easy canter, loping parallel to the water.

 

At first Sansa stiffened, which seemed to be her default reaction to any new situation.  _ I’m not prey,  _ she reminded herself.  _ I’m a wolf.  _

 

Oberyn’s thighs were solid on either side of her, and she could feel his chest pressed against her back as he bent lower over the horse’s mane. Sansa laughed- she couldn’t believe that this was her  _ life,  _ that she was riding a Sand horse with a prince of Dorne along the storm-swept ocean. She twisted her fingers into the horse’s mane, bent at the hip, and felt everything click into place- her calves around the horse’s barrel, her back straight, her hips loose against the roll of the horse. The salty air stung her eyes but she didn’t care, she  _ didn’t,  _ this is what it felt like to be free. 

 

_ Faster,  _ she laughed, and Oberyn kicked again, and now they were thunder, they were the First Man and the First woman and they were all working together, three into one, a triangle of muscles and pumping lungs. 

 

Soon they slowed, for it wasn’t fair to ask the horse to carry two for too long. They’d flown just long enough for a heart to open in love.

 

Sansa didn’t want to wait to get back to the barn, she needed to communicate the enormity of this moment  _ now _ : the grey sky and crying gulls and thundering surf and her blown-wide heart. She swung her right leg up over the horse’s neck and down his side so she was sidesaddle. Oberyn’s hands had been on her the whole time because  _ of course  _ he wouldn’t let her fall,  _ of course  _ he wouldn’t, how could she ever have doubted. 

 

Sansa didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. She braced a hand on the back of Oberyn’s neck and brought his lips to hers. This was not one of the affectionate close-mouthed pecks that she had come to expect from him- this was wet heat like the air before a storm, this was a most delicious form of conquering. For all his passion he was gentle, his fingers cradling the back of her head, his teeth only offering a counterpoint to the slick softness of his lips and tongue. He seemed content to only kiss her, indefinitely, and to her surprise he was the one to pull away from her. 

 

“I could spend hours kissing you,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Truly, I could, but if we do not return soon we’ll be stuck in the rain, and I’d hate for you to grow chilled.” 

 

In that moment Sansa thought that if rain hit her it would sizzle off her. She wondered if she’d be ever cold again.  _ Maybe that’s what the North needs,  _ she thought.  _ A Dornishman in every bed. We’d never need more blankets.  _

 

“Princess?” Oberyn asked, brushing his lips over hers one more time. 

 

“I’m thinking about it,” said Sansa, and Oberyn’s laughed. He held her as she got her legs back on either side of the horse and sedately, with  _ wonderfully loose hips,  _ they rode back into the city. 

~~~

 

“You owe me,” said Oberyn, his voice smug when he walked into Ellaria’s solar after kissing the girls goodnight.

 

“Oh?” asked Ellaria. “If I remember correctly, I spent most of last night doing your favorite thing. _ ”  _  When he reached her sofa she fisted the material of his long coat and pulled him down on top of her. “I think  _ you  _ owe  _ me,”  _ she said, pressing her lips to his. 

 

Oberyn propped himself up on his elbows. “Sansa kissed me,” he said, all male pride and dark good looks.”

 

Ellaria’s eyes narrowed. “She kissed  _ you?”  _ she asked. “Or could you not resist temptation and kissed  _ he _ r?”

 

“She wanted me so badly she kissed me on a moving horse,” said Oberyn. “Kicked her leg right over the horse’s ears and  _ grabbed  _ me.”

 

He signed happily, and Ellaria smacked his arm. “Stop being so smug,” she said. “She may have kissed you, but she’ll go to bed with  _ me.”  _

 

Oberyn pulled a face. “I fear that you may be right. She’s suspicious of me. Of  _ me,”  _ he added in the tone of a boy who would say,  _ who, me?  _ When confronted with evidence of his wrongdoing. 

 

“I’m always right,” said Ellaria. She was working industriously at Oberyn’s trousers. She had them open, and if he lifted his hips she could get them down just far enough to free his cock. 

 

“Are we rushing her?” Oberyn asked, for once choosing conversation over sex. 

 

Ellaria thought about it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Dyna tells me that she likes to be touched, and that she’ll touch Dyna back.”

 

When Oberyn’s eyes went molten, his eyes dilating nearly black, Ellaria had to add, “Foot rubs and hair brushing, darling. None of that… not yet.”

 

“You know,” said Oberyn. “I’ve been thinking that Doran needs to retreat to the Water Gardens. His hands are worse; he works too much.”

 

“It does take a day for a rider to come out with any important raven scrolls,” said Ellaria, now tweaking Oberyn’s nipple. 

 

He lowered his head and mouthed hers through the silk of her dress, leaving an obscene wet mark behind. Ellaria loved it. “It could be for the best,” he said.

 

“We could move her into our suite,” she said. “Right there, so close…”

 

“I’ll tell Hotah and Daemon tonight,” he said, rearing back so he could pull off Ellaria’s dress and his own coat. “They’ll have Doran packed, like it or not.”

 

“Wait-” said Ellaria, pressing one hand to Oberyn’s now-naked chest. “I know we talked about this, but… we can’t toy with her, not like the others. She’s a wolf; she needs a pack of her own. If we can’t be that, if you don’t want to commit…”

 

Oberyn settled his weight against her, warm and reassuring. “Who was the last woman who made me work this hard, made me wait?” he asked her, peppering kisses over her jaw.

 

“Me,” she said, arching back on the pillows so Oberyn could nibble along her pulsepoint. 

 

“And who have I been with for sixteen years? Who accompanies me to court, who raised my children, who can keep me in my bed for the the turn of a day?”

 

“ _ Me,”  _ said Ellaria, growling now, her nails raking across Oberyn’s skin. 

 

“I think that counts as  _ commitment,”  _ he said. “I know what I feel, and I know what  _ you  _ feel. It isn’t too fast, too sudden, too strange. I’ve trusted my instincts for this long,” he said, sliding down her body and pinning her hips to the cushions with her hands. “And they’ve kept me alive and happy. I’ll trust them a little further.”

 

He nosed into her folds and licked at her pearl with the flat of his tongue, enjoying (as he always did) the sinuous hip-roll she gave at this first touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I freaking love the ASoIaF universe. It's not like writing anything else. 
> 
> Thank you guys for being such a welcoming audience! I actually did do a round of edits on this chapter (hurrah!) and my NaNoWriMo fanfic is coming along. As always, thank you for reading and commenting and making AO3 such a vibrant community. Sorry that this is a short chapter! It's kind of a transition from "before" to "after" for Sansa. 
> 
> I bet you can guess what happens next chapter...


	6. Water Gardens

Sansa rode the day-long trip to the Water Gardens on Nel. She’d asked Dyna why they were leaving the Old Palace, and Dyna had guessed that it was for Prince Doran’s health. Sansa was unexpectedly sad to be leaving her chamber: it had just started to feel like home. She comforted herself by saying that she was a part of the household, if not a part of the family.

 

Ellaria rode in the palanquin with Doran and Loreza, but Oberyn, Dorea, Obella and the guard rode their own mounts. (Loreza wanted to ride, but Ellaria whispered to Sansa that last time she’d taken to standing in the moving saddle like a Braavosi acrobat.) Sansa was content to ride quietly next to the palanquin, while all around her the girls and Oberyn swarmed like bees.

 

She was stiff and sore by the time the sun set over the Water Gardens. They truly were the marvel that Dyna had described: a U-shaped sprawl of terraces and chambers two floors high, and in the middle of the U was a series of ever-deepening pools. The pools and walkways were made of perfectly smooth pink marble, and Sansa was immediately struck by how much easier it must be for Prince Doran to navigate the Water Gardens as opposed to the Old Palace.

 

“It’s lovely,” she said to Dyna as she and her maid followed Ellaria and the girls upstairs to their chambers.

 

“I get to pick first, it’s _my turn,”_ shouted Loreza, darting ahead.

 

“We already know which room you’ll pick,” Obella bellowed after her.

 

Dyna leaned towards Sansa and whispered, “The girls stay with my mother when they visit here, and they each get their own room.”

 

Sansa rested her head on Dyna’s shoulder and remembered how it felt to be innocent.

 

Once the girls were in their chambers with Dyna’s mother they didn’t care what happened. “Well, good night you ingrates!” Ellaria called after them, her hands on her hips.

 

Loreza was the only one to answer. Ellaria rolled her eyes and looped her arm through Sansa’s (she and Oberyn were always touching, always, and Sansa had begun to feel lonely when someone else’s skin wasn’t pressed against hers) and towed her out into the hall.

 

“We’re down here,” she said.

 

“We?” asked Sansa.

 

“It’s a big suite,” said Ellaria, escorting Sansa into a room entirely decorated in blue and gold tiles, which glittered in the candlelight. Sansa gasped.

 

“You’d have your own chamber,” said Ellaria. “It’s here on the other side of the solar, but if you’re uncomfortable…”

 

“No,” said Sansa, and it came out more strongly than she’d expected. “No, I’d like to stay.”

 

Ellaria squeezed Sansa’s hand before turning to Dyna. “Would you please unpack your lady’s things? I’ll see to her tonight, but if you could help with the children I’d appreciate it.”

 

“Of course,” said Dyna before stepping away and into the dark room.

 

“Would you join me in the pool, Sansa? I’m having a light supper served down there, and we can rinse off after.”

 

Sansa cursed her shyness, but there was no surmounting it, at least not tonight. “Will there be-”

 

“No, darling, just us,” said Ellaria.

 

“Alright,” said Sansa.

 

They walked arm in arm through the torch and star-lit breezeways until they reached the pool. There was a covered porch in the center, and all over it were huge, body-sized square pillows. Ellaria dropped onto one and tugged Sansa down beside her.

 

“Why does anyone leave Dorne?” Sansa asked. She was laying with her head on Ellaria’s stomach, and the older woman was feeding her cheese-stuffed spinach leaves, morsels of cold chicken, and honey dipped almonds.

 

“Because the world is so large. Just because we live in the best part of it does not mean that there isn’t anything else worth seeing. Besides,” she said with a laugh. “It makes us more thankful when we come home.”

 

Sansa nodded. Her left hand was toying with one of Ellaria’s dark curls. “Why isn’t Oberyn with you?” she asked. “It isn’t because of me, is it?”

 

“No, sweet girl,” said Ellaria, holding another almond to Sansa’s lips. “Traveling is hard for Doran; Oberyn usually watches over him that first night.”

 

A thought began to work it’s way across Sansa’s mind, a thought about regrets and wishes, but she shoved it away. “Oberyn is a good man,” she said quietly.

 

Ellaria brushed a hand over Sansa’s hair. “He is. He’s a very good man, and that is why we stay together. Passions of the flesh may not fade, but the _newness_ retreats, the urgency. But I love him because he is a good, _good_ man, and he stays because the poor fool loves me.”

 

She said it laughingly, teasingly, but Sansa still was compelled to sit up and say, “You’re _easy_ to love, of course he loves you.”

 

Ellaria sat up too, putting her nearly eye to eye with Sansa. “I was not disparaging myself, princess, at least not in truth. But thank you,” she said, leaning forward to kiss Sansa gently. “Thank you for defending me.”

 

Tentatively, her heart pounding in her chest, Sansa leaned in to kiss Ellaria again. She didn’t really know what she was doing and she could see Ellaria’s brown eyes watching her and _that_ meant that Sansa had her eyes open _too_ and that wasn’t how things were supposed to be going at all.

 

Sansa began to pull back, an apology forming, but Ellaria’s soft hands moved to frame Sansa’s face. She tilted her head and kissed Sansa again, and this time Sansa’s eyes were _closed_ and this time Ellaria’s tongue ran once over Sansa’s bottom lip. Sansa leaned towards the woman and mirrored the gesture. Ellaria’s mouth opened so Sansa’s did too, and on a soft red pillow on a starry night in Dorne, Ellaria Sand taught Sansa to kiss.

 

The kissed until they were laying down  on the pillow, their fingers twined in each other’s clothing and their lips swollen from kissing.

 

“You’re wonderful,” whispered Ellaria. “There is much I’d like to show you, if you’d let me, but first, shall we swim? I’d like to rinse off.”

 

“Alright,” said Sansa, blushing. “But I can’t swim.”

 

“That’s fine,” said Ellaria, rising and untying her dress. “It’s shallow enough that you’ll be able to touch the bottom.”

 

Ellaria was naked by the time Sansa was up off the pillow, and Sansa slid off her own dress as Ellaria walked confidently into the pool.  Her lover- lover to be?- was entrancing, all soft skin and clever fingers and unshakable confidence.

 

Sansa padded over the marble, incredibly conscious of the cool air on her breasts and mons. She’d never been naked outside of her bedchamber, and would never have _dreamed_ of walking unclothed outdoors. When Ellaria turned to look back at Sansa, Sansa decided she liked it.

 

“It’s warm!” said Sansa as she started down the gentle slope into the water.

 

“There are boilers beneath the pools,” said Ellaria. “In the deepest part of winter we sit in the pools while the water steams into the air around us.” She ducked under the water then, swimming deeper into the pool.

 

Sansa was content to splash along the edge, working her way further into the water until it lapped over her nipples. She felt lighter in both body in mind, and under Sansa’s exploring fingers her skin felt soft and slick.

 

Ellaria’s fingers replaced Sansa’s and then the woman was beside her, her dark curls slicked back away from her face. She looked predatory like this, like a sea creature sent to lure Sansa to the ocean’s depth. Sansa kissed her again, tasting the salt from the pool on Ellaria’s lips.

 

“There’s more to pleasure than kissing,” said Ellaria. She palmed one of Sansa’s breasts before tweaking the nipple, rolling it until it had contracted into a berry colored nub. “Though I could kiss you forever.”

 

Sansa hadn’t known that her teats could feel like this; she’d mostly considered them some auxiliary form of decoration until they were needed for a baby. Little spikes of heat were traveling from her chest to her cunt and she thought, _so this is what arousal is._ Just as she’d learned to kiss by mimicking Ellaria, Sansa pinched the other woman’s nipple, darker and larger than her own, gently massaging it between her fingers until it stood stiff and proud.

 

“Have you been with a woman?” Ellaria asked, and Sansa shook her head.

 

“No- there was a woman who wanted to; the captain of the ship that brought me here, but I haven’t- for a long time I didn’t know it was done.”

 

“Anything can be done,” said Ellaria, kissing Sansa’s flaming cheek. “Anything you want. Do you want this, sweet girl?” she asked, toying with Sansa’s other nipple.

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “I-”  She didn’t finish the thought, thinking that the confession will only embarrass her.

 

“You can tell me anything, sweet,” said Ellaria, gently nudging Sansa back against the smooth wall of the pool.”

 

“I decided I wanted you a few days after the dress fitting,” Sansa gasped as Ellaria ducked her head and took a nipple between her lips. “You were so beautiful, and then Dyna was telling me about how in Dorne women can do as they please-”

 

Ellaria took Sansa’s mouth again, her lips more demanding now, her fingers fisted tightly in Sansa’s damp hair. That didn’t add pain, only a sense of urgency, and Sansa found herself trembling and impatient.

 

“I’ve wanted you too,” said Ellaria. “Oh, I’ve wanted you.” She took Sansa’s hand and started to lead her out of the pool and back towards the cushions. The night air was cool on Sansa’s skin, and she shivered as she flopped back onto her pillow.

 

Ellaria lounged beside Sansa, and Sansa bent her head to Ellaria’s teats, taking one between her lips and lightly sucking as she would on a sweet.

 

Ellaria’s hand rose to cradle the back of Sansa’s head, supporting her and protecting her, and suddenly the nerves that had held Sansa awkward and uncertain in the pool were gone. She could be free with this woman, this beautiful woman who would not judge her or hurt her.

 

Sansa dug her fingers into Ellaria’s hip before turning to the other breast.

 

“Will Oberyn be angry?” Sansa whispered, licking the undercurve of Ellaria’s areola.

 

“No, sweetness. When I tell him he will be jealous that I could love you first,” she said.

 

Sansa stilled, and Ellaria tipped Sansa’s face up. “What worries you?”

 

Sansa looked away, studying the dark trees that were rustling in the night’s breeze. “I may not ever wish to lay with Oberyn,” she said. “I know you love him, and I’m sure he’s wonderful,” she rushed to add, “but…”

 

“But he is a man,” Ellaria finished. “With a man’s parts, and men and their parts have used you ill for too long.”

 

Sansa nodded, embarrassed over _this._ Not her nudity, not with Ellaria and not here. She was embarrassed about telling her lover that she may not ever be able to accept her lover’s consort.

 

“It won’t matter,” said Ellaria firmly in a tone that invited no argument. “I will still love you, he will still love you. We will not take anything away from you for your reticence, nor will we shame you for it.”

 

 _How easily they spoke of love,_ Sansa thought. _Both she and Oberyn use the word casually, lightly, as though they had an unlimited amount to give._

 

Sansa wasn’t sure what to say, so she leaned in and kissed Ellaria again. It was an excellent form of communication, Sansa decided as she ran her tongue over Ellaria’s. So much could be said with a kiss.

 

They kissed until Sansa’s head was spinning and she wasn’t sure she needed to breathe. There were hearth-tales that dolphins had once walked on land but had chosen to return to the sea; perhaps she could be one of those creatures, perhaps she could choose to breathe Ellaria instead of air. Ellaria’s fingers were toying with Sansa’s nipples and they felt hard and swollen and so sensitive but deliciously so, not like the ache that came before Sansa’s moon blood.

 

Ellaria’s head followed her fingers and her mouth seemed searingly hot after her hands. Now her hand was stroking Sansa’s thigh, up and down like a cat, patiently waiting. When Sansa’s hips began to twitch, seeking _something_ (though Sansa didn’t know what, she was past the point of _knowing_ anyway, she was need incarnate) Ellaria’s fingers slid their way through the curls at the juncture of Sansa’s hips and stroked there, dipping into the wetness.

 

“So soft,” Ellaria whispered, kissing the plane of Sansa’s ribs. “So soft, so pretty.”

 

Sansa lay panting as Ellaria kissed her stomach while her fingers played, butterfly light, over Sansa’s cunt. “One day,” said Ellaria, shuffling herself down so that she sprawled between Sansa’s legs,  “One day I’m going to tickle you like this until you cry for me and the sheets beneath you are soaked through; but not today. Today you’ve been brave and honest and _good._ Sweet girl, sweet Sansa, do you trust me?”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa with no hesitation, her voice low and breathy even in her own ears. Her confidence in this surprised even her, so Sansa repeated, “Yes.”

 

 _“Good girl,”_ hummed Ellaria. Sansa watched as Ellaria settled delicately onto the edge of the pillow and parted Sansa with her thumbs, studying that most intimate of places.

 

“You’re incredibly beautiful even here,” she said matter of factly.

 

Sansa was opening her mouth to say something, but then Ellaria ducked her head and _licked her,_ a wet, hot stroke that shot Sansa into a level of arousal so intense she was panting with it, her fingers gripping the pillow beneath her like a vise.

 

Ellaria licked again, then cocked her head and sucked at a spot high on Sansa’s sex. Ellaria’s mouth was almost lazy, her tugs and licks slow and deliberate, and even when Sansa’s hips began rocking in earnest Ellaria didn’t change her pace. Even when Sansa filled the night air with sighs and moans and mews Ellaria didn’t give in, only continued to work Sansa slowly and deliberately.

 

Sansa was writhing now, her eyes squinted shut and her head thrown back, her berry-red nipples heaving. She was traveling towards some point that was hovering in the distance like a mirage, all crackling electricity and snapping tension and then it was _there_ and Sansa came with a high whine, her back arching and her thighs going rigid around Ellaria’s ears.

 

She was vaguely aware of Ellaria moving up Sansa’s body and taking Sansa in her arms.

 

“Sweet girl,” said Ellaria, and when she kissed Sansa her mouth was wet and salty. _That’s what I taste like,_ thought Sansa. The thought was arousing all over again.

 

“Can I?” Sansa whispered, her voice a little hoarse.

 

“One day, I hope, but not tonight. Tonight was for you.”

 

“But-”

 

“Come, princess,” said Ellaria, neatly ignoring Sansa’s argument. “Let’s get you to bed.”

 

Ellaria dressed Sansa and then herself. The women padded barefoot back up the stairs to their chambers, and Ellaria followed Sansa into hers.

 

Dyna had already folded down the sheets on the large bed and laid out a shift. Ellaria waited patiently, and with amusement, as Sansa washed and changed for bed behind the privacy screen. Sansa came out and grinned at Ellaria, a little _look at me, look at_ us, _I never thought I’d be here_ smile. Ellaria patted the bed and Sansa slid in.

 

Ellaria pulled the sheets up to Sansa’s waist and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I’m proud of you, precious girl. I’m proud of you, and I’m glad you made it to us.”

 

Sansa nodded. It was odd to be tucked again again, odd to have her hair stroked, but it was nice. She closed her eyes and listened to Ellaria’s breathing.

 

“Can I ask you to try something, sweetling?”

 

Sansa nodded, too tired to say, “The last thing you asked me to try was _excellent.”_

 

“Will you spend time with Oberyn? Will you give him a chance to hold you hand, to sit with you like I do? I can be there, if you wish. He wouldn’t dare cross me.”

 

Sansa opened thought about it. From Littlefinger this would be coercion. From the Lannisters it would be a lie. Coming from Ellaria… “Alright,” said Sansa. “That’s fair. We spend time together anyway, just not quiet time.”

 

Ellaria kissed Sansa gently. “Oberyn isn’t a quiet man,” she said, huffing a laugh. She blew out the candle and whispered, “Goodnight, Sansa,” before closing the door behind her.

 

~~~

 

Oberyn was waiting in the hall, his expression amused. Ellaria walked to him, letting her hips swing, and when she reached him she tugged his head down to hers and kissed him, sliding her tongue over his lips.

 

He pulled back, his eyes going wide and warm. “You’ve been with our little friend,” he said, licking his lips.

 

“I have,” said Ellaria. “And now I need you.”

 

Later, while their heart rates returned to normal and the sweat cooled on their skin, Ellaria stretched out and rolled off Oberyn.

 

“If this is how Sansa inspires you,” said Oberyn. “I can hardly complain.”

 

“Don’t be jealous,” said Ellaria. “I spoke to her about you.” She crossed the room, unabashedly naked, to bring a board of cheese and fruit to the bed. She was usually hungry after a bout of lovemaking, and Oberyn knew it.

 

“And what did you say?” asked Oberyn, holding a sliver of salty yellow cheese to her lips.

 

“I asked her to spend time with you,” she said. “Let you hold her hand, cuddle with you on the couch. Private time, quiet time.”

 

Oberyn started to smile, but Ellaria cut him off. “She may not ever want you,” she warned. “Men bother her, cocks bother her.”

 

“They’re bothersome creatures,” said Oberyn, munching on grapes. “Cocks think only of one thing.”

 

He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that Sansa may never lay with him, but not much bothered Oberyn. “Was she wonderful?” he asked, only a hint of wistfulness in his voice.

 

“Spectacular,” said Ellaria, reclining against the pillows. “Absolutely spectacular.”

 

~~~

 

The next day was cool and rainy. Sansa read a little book of Dornish poems while Ellaria bribed, threatened, and cajoled her girls through their lessons. Sansa was more interested in the girls than her book; their lessons were so different from hers. A tutor had come from the citadel and he was teaching Obella and Dorea military strategy. After lessons were finished and the girls were off to the pools to play, Ellaria joined Sansa on her couch.

 

They wrapped around each other as thought they’d always done this; had spent years learning whose arm went where. “Why do you teach your girls to fight? Why do they learn Bastard Valyrian?” she asked. Inside, the small, jealous part of her wanted to ask _won’t they be married off? Won’t their lives be reduced to babies and the grandeur of their Great Hall?_

 

Ellaria stroked Sansa’s hair. “They may be aids to Arianne one day, and if they aren’t, I won’t have them leave me ignorant. They’ll go into this world prepared to face life in all its complexities.”

 

Sansa nodded and buried her hands in Ellaria’s hair. “Last night… can I try that?” she asked. As the girls’ lessons had gone on longer and longer, a shivery ball of anticipation was forming in Sansa’s stomach. She remembered the mindless pleasure, how afterwards her limbs had felt languid and heavy. She wanted to learn to do that; to give Ellaria that gift.

 

“You know you do not owe me anything?” said Ellaria, pressing a kiss to the tip of Sansa’s nose.

 

“I know,” said Sansa. “But I want-”

 

“If you want it, you certainly may,” said Ellaria. She stood and lifted her dress off over her head in one smooth motion, then helped Sansa out of hers.

 

“Now we kiss,” she said. “Until it feels like we may combust.”

 

Sansa had no problem with that. She slid onto the cushions next to Ellaria and took the other woman’s lips, nibbling and sucking like she’d been shown. It was easy to just _feel_ when she lay in Ellaria’s arms: the slickness of her mouth, the softness of her breasts, the warmness of her skin.

 

Sansa slid down to take one teat in her mouth, her fingers toying with the other. “Quick learner, aren’t we?” crooned Ellaria, playing with Sansa’s hair. Sansa nipped her, tugging her nipple ever so lightly with her teeth and was rewarded with Ellaria’s gasp.

 

Drunk on success Sansa slid further still, until she was hunched over Ellaria’s cunny. This was the part she wasn’t quite sure about, but also the part she wanted most. Carefully she parted Ellaria with her fingers, all the while thinking _so this is what a kitty looks like._ Like the rarest blooms in the gardens of the Red Keep, red and wet with dew.

 

Curious, Sansa investigated with the tips of her fingers: flaps, folds, her entrance, her nub.

 

“Right there, sweet,” said Ellaria, guiding Sansa’s hand back to her pearl, which was just peeking out of its little fold of skin.

 

Sansa caressed it again and Ellaria’s hips rolled. Encouraged, Sansa lowered her head and delicately licked, fascinated by the musky smell of Ellaria, the taste of salt and bitters.

 

“Just a little harder,” said Ellaria, placing her fingers on the crown of Sansa’s head.

 

Sansa tried again, sweeping the flat of her tongue over Ellaria’s sex, and Ellaria sighed. For the next few minutes Sansa played, and Ellaria was her willing toy. Could she suck on Ellaria’s nub? _Yes,_ and that made Ellaria moan and sigh. Could she hold her pearl between her lips and shake her head from side to side? Yes, but it wasn’t as effective. Could she flick her nubbin with the tip of her tongue; could she stick her tongue in Ellaria’s wet hole? Yes and _yes._

 

Finally, her curiosity sated but arousal growing, Sansa settled into the business of pleasuring Ellaria. She’d grown so _slick,_ and Sansa had done that, had made her wet and wanting. She licked and sucked, ignoring the slow ache in her jaw, and when Ellaria’s legs closed around Sansa’s head her world focused down to _pleasure, make her happy, make her groan and twitch, we love her, help her finish, make her feel as happy as you are._ Sansa’s fingers were digging into Ellaria’s hips, her face nose-deep in Ellaria’s pussy, and then the other woman came her spine jerked and her legs clenched around Sansa’s head and her cunt went absolutely liquid.

 

Sansa remained there, happily lapping, thinking that she could do this _regularly_ until Ellaria’s legs released her.

 

“Beautiful girl,” Ellaria murmured. “Come here.”

 

Sansa crawled up the couch and wedged herself in the little gap between Ellaria and the back of the sofa. She lay in Ellaria’s arms, her cunt needy and weeping, but she was too happy being held to want to do anything about it. Her face still felt damp and hot, and her contentment felt too large to be contained by one mortal body.

 

Oberyn walked in then, whistling a tune, and Sansa realized she _didn’t care_ that she was naked with Ellaria’s slick drying on her face. Ellaria wouldn’t sleep with a jealous man.

 

“The white raven came today,” he said, dropping into a deep leather chair on the other side of the table. “Winter has come.”

 

Ellaria sighed and twirled a piece of Sansa’s hair. “There’s something sad about the coming of winter,” she said. “But still, on hot days I find myself daydreaming of warm braziers and mulled wine while outside the rains pour.”

 

Sansa thought about Winterfell. She’d been born at the end of the last winter, but she didn’t remember it. It felt wrong to be here, at the other end of the world, when winter came again.

 

Ellaria must have felt Sansa drifting into sad memories, because she rolled off the couch and walked across the room to the wash-stand with casual grace. “Will you see to our girl?” she asked Oberyn, tossing him a wet washcloth.

 

Sansa wondered what girl needed washing before she realized with a pang of pleasure that Ellaria meant _her._ She was still sprawled against the back of the couch unclothed, and nerves started to jangle when Oberyn perched on the edge of the couch next to her.

 

“It appears that Ellaria is teaching you many things,” he said, grinning as he ran the cloth over Sansa’s mouth and chin.

 

She hadn’t been cared for like this since she was a very small child. It should have been ...demeaning, embarrassing, but instead Sansa was learning to treasure Ellaria and Oberyn’s caretaking. It made her feel warm and tended and precious.

 

“She is a motivated student,” Ellaria called from across the room. Sansa peeked over and saw that Ellaria was running the cloth up one leg, then the other, and then over and into her womanhood.

 

Sansa’s eyes were wide when she met Oberyn’s gaze again, and he burst into laughter. “Oh, you make me feel young again, princess,” he said.

 

Her mouth was clean, all traces of stickiness gone, so Oberyn moved into her fingers. He held her wrist gently and swirled the cloth between each finger, pressing a kiss to the tip of each as he cleaned it.

 

“One more stop,” he said, bending to press a kiss to Sansa’s lips and the cloth drifted down over her belly.

 

Sansa’s eyes were going wide again, a mortified flush rising up from her breasts and neck, but Oberyn got there first. The cloth was cool against that warmest, softest part of Sansa, and when Oberyn whispered, “She rode you hard and put you away wet, didn’t she?” Sansa covered her eyes with her hand, but couldn’t stop herself from smirking.

 

“Yes, she did,” she whispered, blushing red-hot.

 

Oberyn tossed the cloth over the back of the couch and scooped Sansa up. “It’s too cool out here,” he said, “And you’re both too pretty for clothes. To bed.”

 

Ellaria walked ahead of them into their chamber and turned down the sheets before Oberyn set Sansa in the middle of the _unbelievably_ large bed. It wouldn’t have fit into her parents’ chamber in Winterfell; it was large enough for four to sleep comfortably, and there were at least a dozen pillows of varying sizes ranged along the top. It was a bed fit for a king- it was a bed fit for a lascivious crown prince.

 

“Have you eaten?” asked Ellaria, as though three people spending an afternoon in bed was a regular occurrence. Sansa thought that for her, it just might be.

 

“No,” said Oberyn, tugging off his coat and boots and sliding into bed beside Sansa. “Would you ask for a tray?”

 

Ellaria walked out of the room in a loose maroon robe embroidered with a phoenix and Oberyn tugged Sansa against him. She hadn’t spent much time with him indoors, but she was used to the smell and feel of his body from their time together in the saddle...

 

TO BE CONTINUED 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I'M THE WORST! I couldn't let myself post an 11,000 word chapter of smut so I broke it up in the middle. It's abrupt and weird and it's because I wrote this whole story and then went back later and imposed chapter breaks. Sorry!
> 
> To my American friends, enjoy your Thanksgiving! To my non-American friends, I hope you find an extra bit of money in your pocket, hit all green lights, and find a special treat for yourself. 
> 
> Once again, thank you for how wonderful and welcoming you've been to me. I appreciate ALL of you. If you ever want to email, let me know and I'll message you with an email address somehow. I love pen pals! We can wail about characters and fan theories and favorite romance tropes together!


	7. Treats

“This place is very beautiful,” Sansa told Oberyn. He was sitting up against the bed cushions, and he’d arranged her so that she was lying on a diagonal, her head against his stomach and one arm flung over his lap. It was very cozy and dangerously comfortable. His skin was warm and smelled of the pools and sandalwood. 

 

“It was built as a gift,” said Oberyn, one large palm stroking down Sansa’s hair. She closed her eyes and listened. “You know that Aegon was not able to conquer Dorne, not even with his sister-queen and her dragon. They tried again years later, but the Dornish would not be defeated; we killed Rhaenys and her dragon, and the Targaryens gave up again.  It was only in peace that Dorne agreed to join the other six Kingdoms, for how could we remain apart when dragons and fire fell from the sky during the Dance? So Maron Martell married Daenerys, and he built this palace for her. I imagine she looked lovely against the pink, all silver haired and pale.” Oberyn paused, lost in his own story, and then tugged a lock of Sansa’s hair. “But not as pretty as you.”

 

“Agreed,” said Ellaria from the doorway. She was carrying a fluted jug of wine and two goblets; Dyna followed her with a heavy tray. When Dyna caught Sansa’s eye she winked, and instead of being ashamed Sansa found herself winking back.

 

“Up,” said Ellaria, smacking Sansa’s arse. 

 

Sansa shimmied her way up and found herself in Oberyn’s lap, her head resting in the shadow beneath his jaw. Ellaria unfolded clever little legs from the bottom of the tray and rested it on the bed in between herself and Oberyn. 

 

Sansa, hungry now that food was in front of her, reached for a slice of boiled egg. Oberyn’s hand smacked hers down and she blinked up at him, confused- couldn’t she share?

 

Oberyn answered her question without words. He picked up the slice of egg she’d wanted and held it to her lips. “Princess,” he said, and Sansa nibbled it, her senses jangling. Adrenaline had spiked through her when he’d smacked her hand, and she’d never eaten from his hand before, only Ellarias. 

 

He took a bit of roast fish for himself, and then held up a sliver for Sansa. It was salty and soft, the flesh flaking apart in her mouth, and her stomach chose that very inopportune time to growl. 

 

“You’ve been neglecting our girl,” said Oberyn to Ellaria, his tone mock-scolding. 

 

“She seemed to be eating well,” said Ellaria calmly, not even glancing their way. Sansa didn’t know what she was talking about; she’d eaten breakfast in her room-  _ oh. _

 

She blushed, and it must have been a bright one, because Oberyn laughed. “I just wish I’d seen it,” he whispered to her, feeding her a bit of apple baked with cinnamon and honey. 

 

A few bites of fish followed, and when Oberyn switched to the apple Sansa whispered,  _ more please,  _ blushing again because now it sounded like she was  _ demanding  _ to be fed. For a girl who thought she had no more blushes left, she seemed to be doing it an awful lot. 

 

Oberyn whispered that she was a  _ good girl, she should always tell him what she needed,  _ and rewarded her with cheek kisses and several more bites of fish. 

 

It was his turn again then, and he finished the fish and poured himself a goblet of wine. It was dark and smelled like old cellars and the memories of sunny days and Sansa wanted some. She listened to Oberyn swallow and enjoyed how his arm tightened around her when he lifted the goblet to his lips. 

 

“Thirsty?” he asked, and when Sansa reached for the cup he  _ tsked  _ and held it to her lips. The wine was slightly bitter, but Sansa liked it, and Oberyn was clearly skilled with the cup because only a drop rolled down her lip when he took the goblet away. 

 

Sansa caught it with her tongue before it could drop onto the sheets, and Oberyn shifted beneath her. “Look,” he whispered in her ear as he uncovered a small dish on Ellaria’s side of the tray.

 

Lemon cakes, four of them, with tiny sprigs of lavender on top. Oberyn broke one apart with his blunt fingers and instead of bringing it to Sansa’s mouth (which was very nearly salivating in anticipation) he popped it into his own. He ate the next bite, and the next, until the whole cake had been consumed. 

 

_ He’s punishing me for trying to get the cup,  _ she thought with growing certainty. Once more Sansa was struck by the knowledge that she really ought to be offended by this high handed behavior, and at the very least she ought to feel like a child, but instead this struck her as an almost chivalrous kind of intimacy. 

 

“May I please…?” she asked, her gaze fixed on the little yellow sweets. 

 

“May you please...what?” Oberyn purred. 

 

“May I please have some cake, Oberyn?” Sansa whispered, her voice tight. She glanced at Ellaria, wondering if the other woman was watching Sansa’s embarrassment with knowing eyes, and to her disbelief found Ellaria propped up in the bed reading, apparently absorbed in her book, occasionally sipping from her glass of wine. 

 

_ This was what she meant,  _ Sansa thought.  _ She’s chaperoning my quiet time with Oberyn.  _ The thought made her feel warm: finally someone in her life had kept a promise. 

 

“Of course, sweetling,” said Oberyn, and bite by bite he fed her the dessert. When it was done he brought his empty fingers back to Sansa’s lips and rested them there. They were just slightly sticky, and Sansa wondered what he wanted until-

 

She licked one, sliding the flat of her tongue over Oberyn’s finger, then sucked it into her mouth. It tasted of sugar and lemon and salty skin, and she repeated the process until all his fingers were clean. 

 

He tugged her tightly to him, and Sansa was happy to recline against him once more, listening to the way his heart thumped steadily on. “I might forget how to use a knife and fork,” she said, not unhappily. 

 

“That’s my plan,” said Oberyn. “It makes me happy to tend you, Sansa.”

 

His voice was low and rumbly under her ear and she liked that, loved the deep vibrations. 

 

“If I remember correctly,” he continued, “You needed ... _ tending  _ earlier. Could Ellaria have saved that delicious task for me?” 

 

His hand was stroking up and down her back now, and both Oberyn and Sansa turned to look at Ellaria. 

 

“Hmm?” she asked, and Sansa knew she was faking it. She hadn’t turned a page in minutes. “Oh- go ahead dear.”

 

She looked over at Sansa and made sure Sansa was looking at her. “He won’t do anything you don’t wish.”

 

“Never,” Oberyn murmured. 

 

“And I’ll be right here,” said Ellaria, placing her book on the bedside table. 

 

Sansa wanted it- at least his fingers or his mouth. Reassured by the fact that Oberyn was still in his breeches, she turned and kissed him. It was different from kissing Ellaria- his beard tickled, and it was just- different. Wonderfully, excitingly different. She rolled from Oberyn, kissed Ellaria in thanks, then turned back to Oberyn and relaxed against him. 

 

They lay on their sides facing each other, lazily kissing. Oberyn’s hand stroked down Sansa’s side, over her arse, down her thigh then back up again, warming and soothing as he went. On one downward stroke he hitched her leg over his hip, opening her cunt for his curious fingers. Sansa blushed and toyed with his nipples, thinking that the way he was gently running his fingertips over her folds and pubic bone was rather nice. Then his finger dipped inside and-

 

“ _ Oh!”  _ she gasped, jolting a little. Ellaria had put a finger inside Sansa before, but it hadn’t felt like this; he was tickling her inside with the pad of his thumb pressed against her nub. 

 

“Beautiful girl,” he said, kissing her forehead. “So slick and warm, soft and sweet.” He continued to murmur and continued to stroke Sansa. 

 

“Can you take more, sweet one?” he whispered. “I think you can; you’re a brave girl, such a sweet, good girl.” He slid another finger inside Sansa, and Sansa was only starting to realize how wonderful that felt; how empty she’d been before. Oberyn was still moving slowly, his fingers curling in her lazily, his thumb ever so lightly touching her pearl. 

 

Sansa gripped his bicep and rolled her hips, frustrated. Someone was making little throaty moaning sounds, and Sansa realized with some amount of shock that it was her. 

 

“You need more?” Oberyn asked with the patience of the Stranger. He leaned closer, scruffed his chin over Sansa’s cheek, then whispered against her ear, “You need to tell me what you need, princess.”

 

Sansa squinched her eyes shut, dug her nails into the muscle of his arm and whispered, “I need more, Oberyn,  _ please.”  _ Her hips were rolling in time to his fingers now, like waves lapping against the shore, and Oberyn rewarded her by rolling her onto her back and kissing her hard, all teeth and tongue, and he settled his weight against her. 

 

He felt absolutely  _ right  _ settled in the cradle of her hips, his weight warm and comforting like the very best eiderdown quilt. She felt safe like this, with his arms bracketing her shoulders. The tension faded out of Sansa and she found herself grinning up at Oberyn, her eyes crinkling at how strange and wonderful life could be. 

 

He grinned back and kissed her delicately, gently, the way that young maidens imagine princes should kiss. “Now,” he said, letting just a bit more of his weight rest on Sansa. “You’re going to be a very good girl, aren’t you?”

 

She nodded, enjoying how  _ simple  _ this was, happy that Oberyn was so easy to please. His pleasure reflected back to Sansa, somehow magnified, and it made her heart flutter and her womanhood weep. She wanted to make him happy; he made her happy, and at that moment Sansa would have wished the whole damned world happiness. 

 

Oberyn tugged Sansa’s arms over her head and wrapped her fingers around the dowels of the headboard. “Keep these right here,” he said, admiringly sliding a hand down Sansa’s arm to her tits. With Sansa’s arms over her head her breasts were displayed, high and proud. 

 

Oberyn’s voice was low and rough, his eyes dilated nearly black. “You’re such a good girl,” he said. “I could keep you in bed forever, playing and fucking, until you forgot everything but Ellaria and me, until your dreams were only of us.”

 

Sansa rolled her head back against the pillow and groaned. She couldn’t, she knew that, but at the same time… the dark promise in his voice was tempting. 

 

“You like that?” purred Oberyn, toying with her nipples. 

 

Sansa was beyond words now; she hoped he could understand the meaning of her flexing hips.

 

“She does!” he teased, pressing a quick kiss to the valley between her breasts. “Would you like to stay with us? To be petted and fed from our hands, to be cared for and loved the way you’ve always deserved? To be pleasured until you forget your name?”

 

Sansa’s palms ached from the dowels because she was gripping them so hard, her head was spinning, drunk on Oberyn’s words, and her hips were roving, looking for friction anywhere she could find it. 

 

“Please,” Sansa heard herself begging- for a touch, for a kiss, for the lifetime they promised. “Please,  _ please.” _

 

“She even begs politely,” said Oberyn, his tone gleeful. Sansa heard Ellaria laugh, then more fingers were on her, these thin and soft, and a different mouth took Sansa’s nipple.

 

Sansa wanted to grip a handful of Ellaria’s hair but she was a  _ good girl,  _ she would keep her hands here and let her dark-haired lovers do as they pleased. 

 

Oberyn was sliding down Sansa’s body and she knew what was coming now; she knew how this went, but when his tongue licked through her folds, hot and wet, she still yelped. 

 

“Is this all for me?” asked Oberyn, parting Sansa with his fingers. “Such a pretty cunny, but see how sad, how lonely and empty? I can’t allow that.” 

 

He kissed Sansa’s thighs before running a finger around her entrance teasingly. “Is this where you want me?” he crooned. “Or here?” he flicked Sansa’s nub, and she bucked, groaning and whining  _ yes Oberyn, yes please, oh gods… _

 

“No gods,” said Ellaria. “Just us- just us now, for who knows what comes after?”

 

Obern nudged Sansa’s thighs open wider with his shoulders and settled in, sliding one knee over his back, then the other. Sansa strained to watch, unbelievably aroused by the sight of him grinning up at her. He was still making eye contact when he nosed into her folds and Sansa watched, panting, as he drew out the suspense, as he ran his nose and fingers over her nub, as he teased her little hole, and then when Sansa’s neck ached and her spine was still with tension he slid two fingers home and took her pearl into his mouth. 

 

Sansa shrieked and Oberyn laughed into her cunny, the vibrations rumbling into Sansa’s womb. Ellaria stroked Sansa’s hair, toyed with her breasts, and kissed her, soothing her and arousing her in turns, making this last longer by distracting her from the sorcery Oberyn was performing between her legs. 

 

“He ruins girls,” said Ellaria, sliding a finger between Sansa’s lips and giving her something to suck. “They lay with him and afterwards all other lovers are a bit of a disappointment.”

 

Sansa moaned. She’d been taken to a place where sensation ruled, where her breath couldn’t come fast enough, where her breasts were sensitive and swollen, where her stomach muscles trembled and all the nerves in her body had been redirected to that magical pearl at the apex of her cunt. 

 

Sansa was covered in a sheen of sweat now, causing little stray hairs to curl around her face. Her arms were tight, her fingers white knuckled around the bed railings. Her hips were rocking into Oberyn who seemed perfectly happy where he was; it was like he didn’t need to breathe. 

 

“Such a good girl,” said Ellaira. “So pretty, so trusting. Let it come, sweet.” She bent her head and nibbled delicately at Sansa’s red nipple. 

 

Sansa’s back arched and she came with a cry, her cunt gripping at Oberyn’s fingers, her head thrashing on the pillow.

 

She lay panting then, her whole body alive with tingles, her arms still over her head. Broad hands were bending her fingers back from the dowls and she released them weakly, needing Oberyn’s help to move her arms onto her chest. 

 

“Thank you, princess,” he said, brushing his damp lips over hers. Sansa murmured something back- it could have been  _ thank you;  _ it might have been  _ I love you.  _

 

Sansa watched through half-lidded eyes as Oberyn kissed Ellaria next:  _ my love,  _ he whispered, catching her hair in his fists. 

 

The bed was big enough that Sansa didn’t need to move away from the couple. Instead she watched, close enough to touch, as Oberyn pushed Ellaria’s robe away from her shoulders. They’d been gentle with her, she knew now as she watched. They’d been deliberate, trying not to spook her. 

 

They moved like those who’d partnered each other for every dance, every day, for years on end. As Oberyn’s hands moved to Ellaria’s dark-tipped teats her hands dropped to the laces of his breeches, easily opening them without ever looking down. When his head dropped to a nipple she leaned back and worked his pants down his hips, her eyes closed and her head lolling back. 

 

When he rolled away to kick off his breeches she rose to her knees, waiting for her chance. They were beautiful creatures, streamlined and predatory, locked in a mating ritual older than time or gods or death. They looked like  _ life-  _ the way their fingers dug into flesh, the way Ellaria’s cheeks flushed, the way Oberyn’s eyes were hot and dark. 

 

Despite the beauty in front of her, Sansa was having a hard time looking away from Oberyn’s cock. It was bigger than she’d expected, and she was a little glad that it was Ellaria getting ready to bed him. Then Ellaria did something that Sansa should have expected: she gripped Oberyn’s hip with one hand, the base of his cock with the other, and took the head of it into her mouth. 

 

“Fuck,” Oberyn groaned, his hand resting on the back of Ellaria’s head. She worked him, hand and mouth in tandem, and Oberyn glanced over at Sansa who was watching, wide-eyed. 

 

“You’re putting on quite the show, love,” he stage-whispered. Ellaria hummed and Oberyn groaned and Sansa felt her hand move, seemingly of its own accord, down to her sopping cunt.  _ Did that feel as good for Oberyn as his mouth had felt on her?  _ The memory had Sansa finding her little nub, which felt swollen once more. 

 

Oberyn had been watching Sansa’s fingers, his fingers slowly gripping Ellaria’s head tighter and tighter. “Enough,” he told her softly, moving away. He sat against the headboard again, his arousal jutting proudly up over his stomach. 

 

Gracefully as a cat Ellaria crawled over Oberyn, sandwiching his cock between their bellies. Sansa saw his teeth flash as he bit the curve of Ellaria’s breast and she gasped, grinding against him. Sansa’s fingers were moving more quickly now, finding a natural circular pattern, and she gasped when Ellaria took Oberyn’s cock in her fist, aligned him with her cunt (a flash of red between damp dark curls) and slid down onto him. 

 

Sansa was gaping- how did it fit?- but Ellaria didn’t seem the least bit hurt. She was rolling her hips experimentally, not up and down but back and forth, her expression smug. 

 

Oberyn was smirking back, and viper-quick his hand was between their bodies and rubbing at Ellaria’s pearl. Ellaria’s hips began moving in time with Oberyn’s fingers, her hands gripping his hair and shoulder, his on her hip and between her legs. They were staring into each others eyes, both smiling, both sweating and panting and intense. Sansa could very nearly hear the drums of the First Men or imagine firelight playing over their bodies. 

 

The room smelled like sex, Sansa could hear own heartbeat, the pants of Ellaria and Oberyn, and the wet slide of his cock in her cunt. It was the more hedonistic than anything she could have ever imagined. 

 

Ellaria came first- at least, Sansa guessed that she did. Her eyes closed tightly with a little cry as her hips stuttered against Oberyn. He wrapped and arm around her back and gripped her shoulder, anchoring her to him more tightly, and then his thighs were flexing and he fucking up into her, his forehead against her shoulder, and Sansa was shocked out of pleasuring herself by how much strength that must take.

 

Oberyn snarled against Ellaria’s skin and then his thrusts stuttered too. They lay there together, her legs still on either side of his hips, her head on his shoulder, for long, hot minutes. He was whispering something in her ear and Sansa was shocked and aroused and surprised.  _ It didn’t hurt her,  _ she was thinking.  _ It looked so good, so  _ full,  _ it didn’t hurt her.  _

 

Ellaria stirred, slowly rising off Oberyn and crossing the room to pull another washcloth from the stack. She dipped it in water and proceeded to wipe her slick and Oberyn’s seed from her folds and thighs. That part Sansa was familiar with. 

 

Oberyn glanced over at Sansa and winked before rolling away to wash himself as well. When he reached the wash stand he took Ellaria’s chin and tipped her face up for a gentle kiss before getting his own cloth. His…  _ cock,  _ Sansa told herself mentally, was soft now, looking odd and unthreatening. What a strange part.

 

Ellaria returned to Sansa first, walking across the room with a cheeky grin and one hand held behind her back. Sansa had removed her fingers from her cunny, blushing madly, and when Ellaria slid into the bed Sansa scooted to her and hung on tight. “I told you he was wonderful,” said Ellaria, combing Sansa’s sex-tangled hair back from her forehead. “Just like you, sweet girl.”

 

Sansa didn’t say anything, too lost in thought. In some ways she felt very silly for being wary of Oberyn’s cock. It was  _ attached  _ to him; it didn’t have a will of its own. At the same time, there was a persistent little voice in the back of her head that said once he was inside her, he’d stop listening. Just like-

 

No, she wouldn’t bring  _ him  _ here. Sansa smiled and pressed kisses to Ellaria’s shoulder and rested her cheek against her skin. “You were very beautiful,” she said. “Both of you.”

 

“Thank you, sweet,” said Ellaria cuddling Sansa closer.

 

The bed dipped behind Sansa when Oberyn rejoined them. He pressed against Sansa’s back and draped an arm over her waist, his hand resting on Ellaria’s hip. They were a unit, the three of them, united together… for what, Sansa didn’t know. She only knew that she liked it. 

 

“You liked that, I think,” said Oberyn, his breath puffing against Sansa’s ear. 

 

“I did,” said Sansa, and some streak of impishness made her push back just a little into Oberyn’s groin. 

 

“A quick learner,” said Ellaria approvingly. 

 

“I saw you,” said Oberyn. “Watching us with your fingers in your wet little cunt. Did you finish?” he asked, moving his hand from Ellaria to Sansa’s breast.

 

Sansa wasn’t going to play coy; she knew what he meant. Now that she’d experienced an orgasm she wondered how she’d made it this long without one. “No,” she whispered.  _ He hasn’t lied to me,  _ she thought, remembering that first dinner together.  _ I won’t lie to him.  _

 

Sansa felt Oberyn shifting behind her, propping himself up on one elbow. “I think she’s earned it, don’t you?” he asked Ellaria, who was doodling invisible patterns on the skin of Sansa’s hip. 

  
“Of course,” she said, leaning in to kiss Sansa slowly, sweetly. “She’s brave and true, and she was so quiet and studious during our… demonstration.” Her fingers roamed lower, sliding into Sansa’s folds and rubbing there. 

 

The arousal that had cooled to embers flared again, and Sansa groaned. She was so sensitive; her breasts ached to be touched, her skin felt aflame, and that persistent little spot between Sansa’s thighs was diverting all her attention. 

 

“My favorite music to hear,” said Oberyn. “Do it again, lover.” He pinched and tugged at a nipple and was rewarded by Sansa’s head lolling back against his chest as she moaned again. 

 

Sansa was warm between her lovers, happily sliding into that place of sensation above thought, so when Ellaria said, “Open, sweetling,” and tapped Sansa’s mouth, she did as asked. 

 

Something long, hard, and cool slid between her lips. Sansa opened her eyes in surprise, and Ellaria removed the object. It was clearly a cock made of jade, long and slightly curved, though not as wide as Oberyn. “We need to warm this up,” said Ellaria, and then slid it back between Sansa’s lips. 

 

Sansa liked the weight of the toy on her tongue. It gave her something to hum against when Ellaria began to tug and pinch at her nub.

 

“Men would wage war to see you like this,” whispered Oberyn, cupping a breast and sucking kisses over her neck and jaw. “A thousand ships would launch, a thousand pasts would be forgotten.”

 

Sansa moaned around the jade cock, and reached out to grip Ellaria’s waist. She felt like she was being pulled apart at the seams… and that was before Ellaria removed the toy from her mouth. 

 

“Nice and warm,” she whispered before trailing the tip of it down Sansa’s body, over her pubic bone, and slid it home. 

 

“ _ Ohh,”  _ Sansa groaned, guttural and low, her hips rocking fitfully. She felt full, but until now she hadn’t noticed how painfully  _ empty  _ she’d been. Now she had a need to feel full, to feel warm and safe and loved inside and out. 

 

“Such a good little love,” whispered Oberyn. “Doesn’t that feel good? Heavy and hard inside you, yes, hitting all the best spots.” Ellaria took that at her cue to work the jade cock in a little deeper, rocking it so the head brushed against Sansa’s insides. Oberyn’s fingers left her breast (stinging, swollen, sensitive) and slid down to join Ellaria at her cunt. She began to work the toy in and out, in and out, and Oberyn picked up that rhythm and circled Sansa’s nub, around and around, and Sansa felt like she was drowning, like she couldn’t breathe but didn’t need to. 

 

She was keening and whining, beyond words, beyond hearing anything Oberyn said other than the tone. 

 

“Almost there,” Oberyn whispered, his blunt fingers still circling, circling. “Can you come for me, pretty girl? Will you fall apart in my arms?”

 

Sansa did, cresting with a whine, the warm bodies of her lovers holding her still. Even after the fingers and cock were removed from her cunny she drifted, only vaguely aware that her head had been moved to a pillow, that a cold, wet cloth was being held to her cunt, that she was being praised ( _ good girl, brave girl, our girl,  _ ours), that she was crying. 

 

Oberyn came back and gathered her into his arms and Ellaria stretched out beside them, one hand on Sansa’s back. “I’m sorry,” said Sansa when she was solidly back inside herself. She swiped at her tears. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

 

“It happens to all of us, in quieter moments,” said Ellaria. “If there are tears of grief and tears of joy, why can’t there be tears of pleasure?”

 

Sansa thought about it. That made sense. “I just feel- full. Full of thankfulness and love gratitude.”

 

“We are grateful to you,” said Oberyn. “We saw something truly beautiful today.”

 

Sansa must have looked doubtful- she remembered a lot of sweat and sticky body fluids- because Oberyn tugged at a lock of her hair and said, “Trust and surrender is always beautiful, and you are firey in your passions.”

 

“You are both very beautiful,” said Sansa, completely serious, and Oberyn laughed. 

 

“I think so, yes,” he said. “Would you like to take this beauty to the pools? I need a swim,” he said, shifting under Sansa. 

 

Ellaria huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes. “This one, sex makes him energetic, ready to fight or run or swim.”

 

“Or fuck,” Oberyn added. 

 

“You’re always ready for that,” said Ellaria drily. “Me, I like a nap after lovemaking. Don’t feel you need to go with him.”

 

Despite the thorough rinsing Ellaria and Oberyn had given her, Sansa was still feeling grimy, like her hair was matted to her scalp. “I’d like to swim,” she said. “Unless there are baths here as well?” she asked, hopeful. 

 

“Both,” said Oberyn, setting her on the edge of the bed. “Pool, then baths.”

 

Sansa smiles at him; in that moment, she’d follow where it was he led. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh! I hope it was worth the wait! I freaking love Oberyn. 
> 
> As always, a big thank you to all of you reading this. You have been so supportive and encouraging, and I am so thankful for you! 
> 
> I've previously mentioned that my NaNoWriMo story this year was a Jaime x Arya fic. I've finished it! Woo! The first chapter has been posted [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742545/chapters/39275725), so if you're enjoying this fic and would like to try another story by me, maybe give it a try? 
> 
> I hope you all are having a wonderful week! <3


	8. Festival of Seasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter. I love it, and I hope you do too.

Sansa’s days took on a new rhythm in the Water Gardens. Oberyn would sneak into her chamber and wake her in the mornings, rubbing her back and whispering filthy things in her ear:  _ If you don’t wake, princess, I’ll climb in there with you, and who knows when I’d let you out again?  _

 

Each day that ‘threat’ was harder and harder to resist. She’d roll out of bed, Oberyn would swat her on the behind, and she’d hurry behind the privacy screen to wash and dress for her ride. 

 

It felt natural now to wear Dornish clothes, and Sansa wondered how she’d ever managed to function in the restrictive layers of the rest of the continent. She was finally comfortable; when she went to bed at night she no longer had angry red marks on her belly and breasts where her corset dug into her flesh. 

 

Oberyn no longer shared Sansa’s horse during lessons. Now he stood on the ground holding the end of a long lead rope, verbally cuing the horse from a walk to a canter to a trot to a gallop, and Sansa was to react to these changes entirely with her seat, for Oberyn had taken away her reins. She was learning to trust Oberyn with these lessons, and the even greater gift was that she was learning to trust her body again: no longer was it the foreign vessel protecting a shaky girl inside, like a hermit-crab in a too-small shell. Her legs were growing stronger, her hands were sure, and now when the horse galloped her heart soared. 

 

Her afternoons were spent with Ellaria. Ellaria loved to read, and some days the two would take turns reading poetry or a history out loud to the other. Dorea had expressed an interest in improving her embroidery (a fact that pleased but puzzled Oberyn, for all his other daughters would rather hold a spear than a needle, and once more Sansa’s heart constricted and soundlessly cried for her Arya), so after luncheon Dorea would curl up next to Sansa and they’d sew together. 

 

Nearly every evening Oberyn would walk in to find Sansa and Ellaria naked and twined around the other. He’d always react the same way: fists on hips, a  _ tsk _ , and, “Isn’t there any room for a cold old man?” and then Sansa or Ellaria or both would grab him and haul him down onto the bed, the sofa, or the floor. Sansa had learned to take Oberyn in her mouth as Ellaria had done on that unforgettable first occasion. It absurdly pleased her that she could unman Oberyn with a few quick strokes and a well-timed glance up at him with big, innocent blue eyes. He seemed to love that best, at least from her- nearly every time she made eye contact he came, his fingers contracting in her hair. 

 

Two weeks after coming to the Water Gardens Sansa woke to sunlight streaming through her window and a general feeling of excitement in the air. She wondered where Oberyn was, why he hadn’t woken her for their ride. Someone had laid her robe across the foot of her bed and Sansa slipped it on, absently running her hand over the peacock she’d embroidered into the blue silk. 

 

There were more voices than usual in the solar outside Sansa’s door, and when she peeked out she say Ellaria and Oberyn, Loreza and Obella and Dorea, as well as Elia and Sarella. 

 

“What’s going on?” Sansa asked, finding a seat near Ellaria and helping herself to half an orange and a cup of still-hot tea. 

 

“It’s the Festival of Seasons,” said Obella, rolling her eyes at the high squeal that Loreza gave. 

 

“Every winter, two weeks after the white raven arrives, there’s a traditional festival,” Ellaria explained, fixing a mug of tea and passing it over to Sarella, who was sitting on a low sofa next to Oberyn. “We have another in the spring when the end of winter is announced.”

 

“How lovely,” said Sansa. “That must give you something to look forward to.”

 

Ellia shrugged, not meeting Sansa’s eyes. “Winter isn’t so bad,” she said. “Mostly it just rains. We still grow things, we still fight. It’s not like the other kingdoms,” she added, saying  _ other kingdoms  _ the way some people might say  _ cankerous sores.  _

 

Sansa tried not to feel awkward as she dressed for the day. She hadn’t spent much time with Oberyn’s older daughters, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. They were older than Sansa in age, which she supposed was odd, but Sansa certainly didn’t  _ feel  _ eighteen. They likely saw her as another of Oberyn’s temporary affairs, and maybe she was, but she would face these warrior women with a straight spine and a smile. She was a Stark, she was Catelyn Tully’s daughter, and no amount of Dornish finery would take away the cold iron in her blood. 

 

If Sansa happened to ask Dyna for a more elaborate hairstyle, well. She was allowed her pride. 

 

Eventually the crew was ready, and as a shifting, roving pack they descended through the palace and met Doran where he waited on his palanquin. His nieces ran to greet him first, followed by Ellaria and Oberyn, and Sansa was the last to make her curtsy. 

 

“Dorne looks like it agrees with you, Sansa,” he said. 

 

Sansa smiled; how could she fear this man who was reported to be a gentler version of his brother? “It does, my Prince.”

 

For a second they grinned at each other, one misfit to another, and then the palanquin was being lifted and carried out of the gates. There was a small village outside the walled gardens of the palace and a large group of people had already gathered on the inland edge of the village. 

 

It’s possible that Doran’s speech was the shortest of any crowned leader on record. He lifted his arms as the crowd quieted and shouted, “Winter is here! Let the Dance begin.”

 

A drum began to pound, deep and loud. A flute trilled, high and clear, before dipping into a melody that twined through the steady beat of the drum. Sansa heard bells and there, in the center of the village about fifteen yards ahead, was a barefoot women dressed all in yellow, with little bells sewn into the material of her costume. She spun slowly, gracefully, and then bent, her arms outstretched towards another figure. 

 

There was a man all in black- boots, breeches, coat- and he stalked the yellow-clad woman gracefully, his movements always to the beat of the drum. The pair moved into the village, the man pursuing the woman, the woman always staying just out of reach as she spun and leapt and darted away. 

 

Dorea was holding Sansa’s hand, and on Sansa’s other side was Oberyn, holding Loreza on his shoulders so she could see above the crowd. He took Sansa’s other hand and tugged her close. “She’s the Summer Lady,” he said. “Once, before time began, the gods walked the earth to admire all they had wrought. The summer lady brought life and warmth wherever she walked. 

 

“One day the Lord of Winter spotted her and wanted her for his own, envying how the very first mortals loved her, wanting her heat and loveliness for himself. He pursued her, and she led him on a merry dance that lasted years. That is why our seasons are so long,” said Oberyn. They were in the town square now, following the dancers as they darted through the crowd and over fountains and market stalls. The drum still boomed, and for a moment it was like a second heartbeat connecting them all, the rhythm of life itself. 

 

“Eventually she tired, though some say she wanted to be caught,” Oberyn said as the crowd watched the dancers spin past each other, the bells on the Summer Lady’s dress tinkling. “The Lord of Winter took her to his palace of ice, but she wilted there, and as she faded so did the plants and beasts and people of the earth. He freed her on the condition that every few years he could chase her again, and every few years she consents to being caught.”

 

The Summer Lady and her winter lord were outside town now, their dance forgotten, locked in a footrace towards the sea. Sansa could see that the girl playing Summer was laughing when she looked over her shoulder, and just before she plunged into the water the man in black caught her and drug her down to the sand in a kiss. Everyone cheered and laughed, the drumbeat stopped, and the force that had been holding the crowd together as one broke. 

 

“Now there’s a feast!” called Oberyn over the noise of the crowd. “Hosted in the palace grounds!” He turned to look for Ellaria and Sansa grabbed the material on the back of his tunic, worried about getting separated from him by the crowd, which was laughing and shoving in every direction. 

 

“I want to be the Summer Lady one day,” said Dorea. “Papa says that I could only play her in the spring, because in the spring she outruns Winter. Otherwise he’d have to kill the Winter Lord who caught me.”

 

“I think he was teasing,” said Sansa, smiling. 

 

“Maybe,” said Dorea. “But I  _ want  _ to be caught. Doesn’t it look romantic?”

 

_ Not really,  _ thought Sansa. “There’s not much romantic about being chased,” said Sansa, choosing her words carefully. “Not unless it’s a game.”

 

“Of  _ course  _ it’s a game,” said Dorea as Oberyn towed them back through the gates of the Water Gardens. “They aren’t  _ really  _ Summer and Winter.”

 

“Really?” gasped Sansa like a mummer, making Dorea laugh. 

 

The garden had been prepared for guests: tables and chairs were scattered around the edges, musicians were set up on the covered step where Doran usually sat, and a long table had been set with pies and cheeses and huge casks of wine and ale. Sansa had never seen something like this; no other Westerosi house would consent to share a feast with their smallfolk. 

 

She found a seat on the covered porch with Ellaria and the girls. Doran and Oberyn were in the courtyard talking and laughing, and even Doran’s guards looked relaxed. Sansa swapped pie halves with Obella, finding one filled with potatoes and onions and spices, the other filled with stewed beef and peppers. She had wine- more than normal, but Dornish wine was so smooth, so easy to sip at for hours. The party stretched on into the night, and when Ellaria finally herded the girls away from the dancers and up into their rooms Sansa followed. 

 

She wanted to dance. She waited for Ellaria on the balcony of their solar, watching as lanterns were lit around the garden as people danced and spun across the marble. She’d danced as a child, dutifully memorizing all the steps of each dance. It hadn’t been fun, exactly. She’d taken pleasure in pleasing her mother, at being more talented than Arya, in being graceful and beautiful. She’d never seen dances like  _ this.  _ Here the Dornish held their partners close, their hands on shoulders or hips, and they spun and flew along together in kaleidoscopic tangles of skirts and laughter. Sansa watched as one man lifted his partner into the air, still spinning, and Sansa guessed that she must feel as though she was flying. 

 

Ellaria padded into the room, done fighting her daughters back into their beds. “I wish you would join them,” said Ellaria, joining Sansa on the balcony. “Because I’m too tired to stay up another minute. Obella knows she can take a lover once she turns sixteen, just as she can take up residence in her sisters’ household. She’s determined to be sixteen  _ now,  _ and Dorea wants to collect kisses, and Loreza tried to fight the cook’s son.”

 

“Come on,” said Sansa, laughing. “Let’s get you to bed.” She took Ellaria’s hand and led her into her chamber, waiting on the bed while Ellaria washed and disrobed. When Ellaria came to bed (naked, she and Oberyn both slept naked, as Sansa did when she napped with them) she tucked Ellaria under the covers and lay beside her, stroking Ellaria’s hair. 

 

“I’m so happy to be here with you,” said Sansa. 

 

“I’m glad you’re here too,” said Ellaria, catching Sansa’s hand and kissing her palm. 

 

Sansa stroked Ellaria’s hair and rubbed her temples until the other woman fell asleep. Then Sansa pressed a kiss to her brow and snuck out of the chamber, not yet settled enough for bed. 

 

She poured herself a glass of water, dropped in a slice of lemon, and carried her drink outside. The night had grown cool, at least by Dornish standards, but Sansa was of the North and she didn’t need a shawl. People were still dancing, but as Sansa looked closer even more couples were fucking, using bushes or trees or even just the skirts of the women’s dresses as camouflage for their activities. 

 

Sansa heard footsteps behind her so she glanced back into the solar and saw Oberyn. She knew he only made noise so he wouldn’t startle her; he was perfectly capable of slipping in and out of a room without a sound.

 

“I saw you watching,” said Oberyn, bending down to kiss Sansa. He tasted of wine, and Sansa licked her lips. “You looked like a lonesome princess trapped in a tower.”

 

“Not trapped,” said Sansa, “Safe.”

 

Oberyn’s eyes softened, and when he sat on the other chaise Sansa crawled into his lap. “It was a beautiful day,” she said. “The music, the dancing.”

 

“I wish you’d stayed to dance with me,” said Oberyn, stroking up and down her back. “Do you dance?”

 

“I did dance,” said Sansa. “But not anymore, I think.”

 

Neither of them glanced at her feet. Sansa knew that she didn’t need to explain. It would hurt if her partner accidentally trod on her toes (or the place her toes should be), and she wouldn’t be able to turn and dip on the balls of her feet quite as she used to.

 

“You will still dance,” said Oberyn, all confidence. Sansa suspected his confidence was so huge, so solid, that he was able to warp the world around him,  _ willing _ truths into being. 

 

Sansa raised an eyebrow. 

 

“I’ll show you,” he said, placing Sansa on her feet and rising, standing before Sansa. He pulled her to him and put one warm hand on the small of her back. “Here, here. Put your feet on my boots.”

 

“No!” said Sansa. Why would she purposefully step on Oberyn’s toes?

 

He solved the problem by putting both hands on her waist, picking her up, and placing her where he wanted her. “Did you not do this as a child?” he asked, looping her arms loosely around his neck. 

 

Sansa rather liked how he was so casually arranging her, so she leaned her cheek against his chest. “No, when I danced it was usually with Robb or Septa Mordane,” she said. “It was for learning, not for fun.”

 

Oberyn’s lips ghosted over her hair. “I think sometimes you have spent too much time at learning and not enough on pleasure,” he said. “But that is alright- you are in Dorne now, a country known for its pleasures.” 

 

Yes,” said Sansa, leaning back so she could look Oberyn in the face. “And you have the reputation of a man who is an expert on pleasures.”

 

Oberyn laughed, which made Sansa’s mouth widen into a grin. “Now,” he said, shifting his weight experimentally. “We dance.”

 

He sidestepped, and as he did Sansa felt her hips align with his. Up on his boots like this they were almost (but not quite) at eye-level, which put other  _ parts  _ at a level as well. “Relax,” he whispered, brushing his lips over Sansa’s temple. “Let me do the work. Just relax. Listen to the music, do you hear it?”

 

Sansa did. She could hear the harp and drum and flute from here, the tempo cheerful and the tune entirely Dornish. She nodded, enjoying the feeling of looking up at Oberyn. She was at a height with most men.

 

“Good,” said Oberyn, kissing her forehead. “Let me move for you.”

 

Sansa closed her eyes and rested her cheek on Oberyn’s chest and he did, he danced them around the room, slowly at first, his steps falling right on the beat of the music. Sansa could feel her joints going loose, and then she was  _ flowing  _ with him, her hips rolling back as his went forward, her spine arching towards or away in counterpoint to his. She was the sunflower and he was the sun and she needed him like this, needed a light in her life because before him and Ellaria and autumn in Dorne she was dormant and wishing for death. 

 

The room was swirling around them now as Oberyn spun, his laugh trailing out behind him like a bright ribbon. Sansa was smiling, her ear still pressed over Oberyn’s thundering heart, and on their next turn around the room she saw Ellaria standing in the doorway, her hand pressed over her own heart and her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. 

 

The song drew to a close and Oberyn stopped dancing, but still Sansa didn’t step off his boots and back onto her own, untrustworthy feet. She wanted to stay like this: suspended in this clear Dornish night, the melody of the song still singing through her veins, and a huge love for the man in her arms blossoming in her chest. 

 

“Lovely,” Ellaria said quietly, and Sansa stepped back. For a second she was cold after being pressed so tightly to Oberyn’s heat, but that was a foolish thought, so Sansa straightened her back and curtsied, just a little, just as she would have done at a ball. 

 

“Where did you learn to do that?” asked Sansa. Ellaria had walked into the room and she’d taken Oberyn’s hand and was looking up at him, her eyes soft. 

 

“I have eight daughters,” he said yet again. “And at some point all of them wished to dance with their papa.” 

 

Sansa had few memories of spending time one on one with her own father. He had been busy, busy trying to keep up relationships with the other northern Houses and trying to run Winterfell and keep his wife happy and make his ancestors proud. 

 

“I’m sorry if we woke you,” said Sansa to Ellaria.

 

“I was only drowsing, it’s no matter,” said Ellaria. “Good night, sweet Sansa.” The older woman walked to Sansa, cradled her cheek, and pressed her usual kiss to Sansa’s lips. 

 

“Good night,” Sansa whispered. She and Oberyn watched Ellaria pad away and then grinned awkwardly at each other, like two naughty children caught raiding the pantry for sweets. 

 

Sansa rose on her toes, intending to kiss Oberyn good night and retire to her chamber. She brushed her lips over his, enjoying the sensation of sharing the same air with him, but-

 

But he was such a good man, sweet and thoughtful and loyal to his family above all else. But she suspected that she loved him, loved him for his huge laugh and his clever mind and his inexhaustible energy. But… but she  _ wanted him.  _

 

Sansa wasn’t sure how to  _ tell  _ Oberyn all this, so instead of awkwardly fumbling through an explanation Sansa trusted that Oberyn would figure it out. She rose back up, slid her fingers into his hair, and kissed him like he was the only thing keeping her alive, like he was air and bread and water, like she’d die if he didn’t take her to bed. 

 

By the time they broke apart Sansa thought that last bit might just be true. 

 

“Are you sure?” asked Oberyn, his voice surprisingly gentle. 

 

“Very,” said Sansa. She was: she’d already seen every inch of this man, and he’d seen her. He’d been inside her, he’d loved her, and Sansa was coming to realize she loved him- them, him and Ellaria. 

 

She’d never bedded Oberyn alone, and she was a little excited by that- by trying something new with just the two of them. Sansa wouldn’t have to worry that Ellaria was being excluded; she would make it up to the other woman tomorrow. Or maybe she  _ and  _ Oberyn could make it up to the Ellaria tomorrow. 

 

“What are you grinning about?” asked Oberyn as he followed her into her chamber.

 

“Ellaria,” said Sansa. “I was thinking about what we could do to make this up to her tomorrow.”

 

Oberyn’s smile was predatory. “I do love the way you think,” he said, kissing her forehead before gripping the fabric of her dress and tugging it over her head. “But let’s worry about tonight, first.”

 

“I’m not worried,” said Sansa, pushing Oberyn’s split coat over his shoulders. 

 

“Good,” said Oberyn, watching as Sansa’s fingers confidently unlaced his breeches. He kicked off his boots as she shoved his trousers down around his hips and then they were both naked and falling onto the bed together. 

 

It did feel a little odd without Ellaria there; a partner was missing in a dance that was usually three. It’s...intimate, knowing that Oberyn was focused only on Sansa. He kissed her gently, delicately, and his hands traced all the planes and curves of Sansa’s body like he’d never seen them before. 

 

_ It feels like a wedding night,  _ thought Sansa.  _ Oh- he’s given me all the wedding nights I  _ should  _ have had.  _

 

That thought made tears prickle in the corner of her eyes and Sansa tried to blink them away, but Oberyn missed nothing. 

 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, kissing Sansa’s cheek, her forehead, the tip of her nose. He still held her close, not put off by emotions or tears, and Sansa loved him a little more for it. 

 

“Nothing,” said Sansa, and she meant it. Nothing was wrong: it was  _ right.  _ He looked skeptical, so Sansa swallowed hard, hid her face in the dark, warm space under his jaw, and whispered, “I was thinking that this felt like a wedding night. Like the one I should have had, and I wanted to thank you for it.”

 

Oberyn kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back, letting her have her pride. “Every night, princess. Men shouldn’t be considerate for one night and take their pleasure selfishly forever after.”

 

Sansa kissed him, kissed him for being the one safe man she knew in a world that was more filled with brutality than it had any right to be. She kissed him with hopes she thought had died, she kissed him with grief for the girl she’d been. It was a wet kiss, with no finesse involved, but Oberyn didn’t seem to mind. His hands tightened on Sansa’s hip and back, his blunt fingers digging into flesh, and Sansa wanted to be closer to him, she  _ needed  _ to be closer to him.

 

“Oberyn,” she whined, canting her him. 

 

“Patience,” he said, and returned to kissing her, stroking her, slowly melting her into a soft puddle of girl that would ebb and flow for him like the tide. 

 

When Sansa was clawing at him, her nails leaving little red welts in their wake, Oberyn rolled her onto her back and settled over her, his weight reassuring and maddening all at the same time. 

 

“ _ Now,”  _ Sansa growled, undulating against him. 

 

“Yes, princess,” said Oberyn on a laugh, kissing Sansa’s nose. 

 

He didn’t tease her anymore, didn’t inch into her. He slid home easily, gently, like falling into your own bed after a long time away. It was home, inside and out, and Sansa was, temporarily, sated by the fullness.

 

It didn’t take long to have her rocking into him, pleasuring herself on his cock. “One day,” said Oberyn almost conversationally, beginning to rock into Sansa, “I will teach you the meaning of patience. I will let you learn all the pleasures that anticipation can bring you. But today is not that day, princess.”

 

Sansa huffed, half laugh and half groan, and when Oberyn began thrusting against her in truth, his hips slow and deliberate and hard, Sansa’s head rolled back onto the pillow. Slowly, ever so gradually, he began to move in her more deliberately, his hips working in time with hers, his thumb rubbing circles at the top of her cunt. 

 

Sansa felt _whole,_ complete, relieved, like she’d been carrying a weight that had suddenly been lifted. Nothing hurt; she only felt the now-familiar ache of arousal humming in her stomach and cunt. 

 

She felt fingers on her chin, turning her face towards Oberyn’s. “Princess,” he whispered, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. He was still moving in her, driving her inexorably higher. “Princess,” he said again. “Look at me, Sansa. Look at me.”

 

“Oberyn,” she said, opening her eyes, blue meeting nearly black. She moaned again, and caught a glint of pride in his eyes. 

 

“Look at me, beautiful girl,” he said. “I want to see the pleasure take you, I want to watch you come and know that it’s  _ me.”  _

 

It should have sounded possessive. Instead Sansa found this reassuring: this was  _ Oberyn,  _ this was the man she trusted with her heart and mind and body. From Oberyn that little speech was reassuring. 

 

“I can feel you, wet around me sweet girl. Warm and sweet, just like you. Sweet Sansa, my sweet Sansa.”

 

Sansa arched, sinking her teeth into the curve of Oberyn’s shoulder, his hips never faltering, forcing her higher yet. 

 

“I’m in bed with a little wolf!” Oberyn laughed, nuzzling at Sansa’s temple. “A fierce little wolf, one who demands her pleasure.” His hand was back at her chin, tipping her face towards his once more, and then his fingers were trailing down to tweak a nipple on their way to her swollen nub. 

 

Sansa jumped when he began to circle there, making the muscles in her stomach jump and clench. She keened into Oberyn’s ear. 

 

“Come on, little wolfling. It’s alright, sweet. Come for me.”

 

Sansa did, not closing her eyes until the penultimate second, not wanting this perfect suspended moment of pleasure and Oberyn’s voice and warm Dornish night to end. She came on a sob, the sensations overwhelming, and moments later she was aware of something warm and sticky spattering onto her stomach- Oberyn’s seed; he’d pulled out instead of spilling inside her. 

 

She almost cried at that, at seeing his seed on her. She knew she could take moon tea, but he’d thought of this, had thought of  _ her,  _ and how could she not love this man?

 

Oberyn bent low to press a lingering kiss to Sansa’s forehead before striding across the room to fetch a washcloth. He wiped them both down before climbing into bed and cuddling Sansa into him. 

 

“From now on,” whispered Sansa. “When I think of my first time lying with a man, I’ll think of that. Of you, here, as one season shifts to another. Beginnings and endings and a sweet song in the air.” She didn’t care that it sounded childish. Her real first time with a man had been so far from a sweet song that it might as well have been a funeral chant. This was the first night that it had been  _ her  _ choice, so this should, in all just worlds, count as her first time. 

 

Oberyn didn’t laugh. He just stroked a palm over Sansa’s hair and down her back, a soothing gesture. “So may it be,” he said. 

 

They were quiet, enjoying the soft night air and the joy of having a lover to cuddle. Oberyn spoke first, his voice slightly rough with the late hour. “I wish I’d taken you then, years ago,” he said. “Ellaria and I heard rumors of your ...abuses at the hands of the Lannisters, and I wouldn’t leave a dog in their care.  But after the Mountain was killed and Tyrion was freed, it seemed prudent to leave. I’m sorry I didn’t do more for you.”

 

Sansa laid her head over his heart. “It’s alright,” she said. “You didn’t know, and I’m here now. I’m alright now.”

 

She  _ was _ alright; she was whole and happy and learning a confidence that was all the more powerful for having been hard-earned. She was here in this bed with a southron prince on a soft Dornish night: all was right in Sansa’s little world. 

 

~~~

 

Waking up next to Oberyn was like sliding into a warm bath- first it’s tingles, then warmth, then a full body relaxation that’s as pure and consuming as a sunrise. Eventually Sansa opened her eyes and saw Oberyn’s face on the pillow beside her. He looked intense even at rest, like his eyes would pop open and he’d spring out of bed at any second. 

 

She was lying with her arm over Oberyn’s belly and one leg over his thighs, clinging to him even in sleep. Sansa suspected she wouldn’t get back to sleep, but she was still content to just stay quietly touching Oberyn, wishing only that Ellaria was with them too. 

 

The gods must have heard her, because a few minutes later there was a soft creak and Ellaria was peeking through the cracked door. 

 

She grinned when she saw Sansa and Oberyn, and Sansa winked and crooked a finger; the universal,  _ come here  _ signal. 

 

Ellaria tiptoed across the room shucked her robe before settling on Oberyn’s other side.  _ How easy this was,  _ thought Sansa.  _ No jealousy, no possession or hurt feelings.  _ Oberyn and Ellaria had love to give freely and they had souls gracious enough to receive love in return, however it chose to come to them. 

 

Ellaria stroked Sansa’s hand where it rested on Oberyn’s waist before reaching further down to grip his cock. Sansa’s eyes widened and Ellaria grinned, slowly and gently sliding her hand up and down until he was fully hard, his cock jutting up from his body. 

 

“I am the luckiest man alive,” said Oberyn with his eyes still closed. His voice was raspy with sleep, and Sansa loved it. 

 

“You are indeed,” said Ellaria, her hand moving more quickly now. “Did you two have fun without me?” 

 

Sansa blushed and Oberyn smirked. “Oh, I think we did,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at Sansa. 

 

Ellaria sat up and straddled Oberyn, positioning his cock between her lips but not sliding down onto it, merely rubbing it along herself. With each backwards cant of her hips the head of Oberyn’s cock would peek from between her legs, and each time it was wetter and wetter. 

 

Sansa could feel moisture gathering in her cunt as well; who could look at these beautiful, primal creatures and  _ not  _ be moved? She clenched her thighs together, trying to make the anticipation last. 

 

Ellaria continued to slowly pump her hips over Oberyn’s cock, and he toyed with her breasts and hips, his fingers slowly dancing over every inch of her with fondness and familiarity. 

 

When Ellaria finally tipped back and slid Oberyn home, they both sighed and turned to look at Sansa. 

 

“Well?” asked Oberyn. “You didn’t think we’d leave you out in the cold, did you?”

 

Sansa looked at him, then at Ellaria, then down where his cock joined with her. “Ah?”

 

Obern patted his chest. “Come here, sweetling. Give Ellaria a kiss.”

 

By now Sansa trusted that whatever Oberyn had in store for her must be wonderful, so she straddled his ribcage and blushed when she realized that her wet cunny would press against the smooth, tanned skin of his chest. 

 

Ellaria leaned forward and kissed Sansa, her fingers cupping Sansa’s cheek, and Sansa relaxed into the kiss, comforted and aroused. 

 

And then Oberyn’s hands clamped onto her hips and drug her backwards until her cunt was directly over his mouth. Sansa squeaked and tried to kneel up and away but Oberyn grabbed her and then, slowly, luxuriously, licked her pussy from one end to the other. 

 

“Oh,” Sansa said, realizing what he was about. “But… can he breathe?” she asked Ellaria, concerned. 

 

Oberyn bit Sansa on the curve of her behind for that, and Ellaria laughed. “Trust me,” she said, leaning forward to kiss Sansa again. “He can lay with you like that all day.”

 

Ellaria started to grind her hips, forward and back, and Oberyn set up a rhythm of sucks and flicks to Sansa’s nub. Off balance and awkward Sansa reached towards Ellaria and took her hand. They braced against each other, and under Sansa Oberyn was persistent, his mouth forcing her to greater heights of arousal, and soon she was rocking on his face. He hummed his approval, and the vibrations shot straight to Sansa’s empty cunny. 

 

Desperate for more stimulation, unable to look away from Ellaria riding Oberyn’s cock, Sansa used her free hand to tug and twist her own nipple. 

 

Ellaria moaned, leaned forward, and kissed Sansa. Oberyn’s fingers were digging into Sansa’s hips, Ellaria’s mouth was slick on hers, and the room smelled deliciously of sex and the morning breeze. 

 

Sansa came first, keening and shivering over Oberyn’s mouth. She scooted away from him when she couldn’t stand his tongue on her nub anymore, and slid her fingers into the slick heat of Ellaria’s cunt. She found Ellaria’s pearl swollen and needy and Sansa circled it, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. Ellaria tumbled into pleasure, her head falling forward to rest on Sansa’s shoulder. She recovered quickly (practiced in the art of lovemaking) and worked her hips hard, almost violently back and forth until Oberyn was twitching beneath both Sansa and Ellaria. 

 

The fell onto the bed, sweaty and replete, and Oberyn roused himself enough to kiss both ladies. “I hope to die this way,” he announced. “With one woman’s taste in my mouth and another on my cock.”

 

Ellaria mumbled into her pillow, “If you keep this up, the Stranger will come for all of us sooner than later.”

 

Oberyn laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I loved writing it! 
> 
> As always, thank you for the overflowing support. I love hearing your thoughts and yelling about Sansa with you! I hope you all have wonderful, easy weeks and that someone tells you that thing you really need to hear. 
> 
> All the love! <3


	9. Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, y'all should just avert your eyes now.

Sansa continued to ride in the mornings and then seek out Ellaria for whatever pleasures the day held. They’d been in the Water Gardens for nearly a month, and some early mornings, when she woke up twined around a lover (whichever, for they were both so dear) or in her own cozy bed, Sansa was able to forget that she’d ever lived anywhere else. She always felt guilty about those slips; she loved her family, of course she did, but more and more Sansa was realizing that she was allowed to be happy. 

 

She’d suffered enough for her naivety, for her innocence, for her mistakes. The punishment had far outweighed the crime: she’d trusted knights to act as good men. She’d trusted the queen to act in the best interests of her charge. She’d trusted- full stop. She’d gone into the world with an open heart, and still- even now- it ached with love for the two people who’d claimed her for  _ herself,  _ without any promised power or lands or children in return. 

 

They loved her. She loved them. And Sansa deserved to be happy. 

 

The realization wasn’t huge, didn’t bring her to her knees or cause her to faint away. She realized she was in love, and she realized that she’d forgiven herself while lying in her bed as the early light of dawn fell across the orange and red coverlet on Sansa’s bed. 

 

Her hair was the color of life, the color of a new day, the color of Dorne. It was almost as if she’d been made for this place. 

 

She found herself growing bold, comfortable with herself, pouncing on Ellaria or once- memorably- creeping beneath Ellaria’s writing desk and pleasuring her while the other woman tried to work on her correspondence. Her confidence had even spilled over into her relationship with Oberyn; she found herself tugging him into the grain room of the stables or shadowed nooks in the garden to kiss him- or more. 

 

Her contentment turned to confidence, and one afternoon after a wet and chilly morning on horseback she wandered down to the baths with Ellaria. She’d never been to the baths outside of the time blocked off for women only, but her inhibitions and northern sense of privacy was slipping away along with Sansa’s guilt. 

 

Oberyn was already in one of the baths with his second, Daemon, and Ellaria led Sansa by the hand to their pool. Ellaria seemed eager to show off her lover to the few people in the baths. She undressed Sansa slowly, and once Sansa was naked she had her stand on the cool marble and slowly, gently pinned Sansa’s hair to the crown of Sansa’s head. By the time Sansa slipped into the water her nipples had tightened to hard points in the winter air. 

 

“Sweet girl,” said Oberyn, leaning over to kiss Sansa. Sansa kissed him back, flirtatiously nipping at his lip before he pulled away, his eyes twinkling. Daemon winked at Sansa and she smiled back. Ellaria slipped into the pool between Oberyn and Sansa, and Sansa obligingly slid closer to Daemon. 

 

“What are you two doing?” asked Ellaria, reaching back to grab the sponges she’d brought for herself and Sansa. 

 

“Relaxing,” said Daemon. “Our prince was relentless in drill this morning.”

 

“I was feeling energized,” said Oberyn. 

 

Ellaria grinned at Daemon. “You know how he gets,” she said.

 

To Sansa’s surprise Daemon leaned over and kissed Oberyn. “I do,” he said. “And I miss it.”

 

“Mmm,” Oberyn hummed. “Aren’t you supposed to be reporting to Doran?”

 

“Yes, master,” Daemon said on an eye roll so exaggerated it was amazing that his eyeballs didn’t get stuck. He stepped out of the tub, and Sansa averted her eyes… and then didn’t. 

 

He was more heavily muscled than Oberyn was, and slightly shorter. He had more hair on his chest, and when he caught her ogling her winked again. Daemon picked up a folded bath sheet and wrapped it around his waist before striding away, humming something to himself. Oberyn, Ellaria, and Sansa all watched him go.

 

Oberyn reached across the tub and pulled Sansa across to him. She enjoyed the slickness of his hands on her skin and that moment of weightlessness as she floated against him. “You’ve never sought out the baths in the afternoon, princess,” he said. “You might have warned me: the men seeing you here will be useless for the rest of the day, distracted by thoughts of you and your perfect tits, your arse, your smile.”

 

Sansa grinned and kissed Oberyn, moving against him a way that she now knew always caught his  _ attention.  _

 

“Yes- that’s what I’m talking about, pretty girl.”

 

Ellaria laughed. “Sansa, have pity on our old man,” she said, leaning to catch Oberyn’s lips with hers. 

 

“It looked like he was doing well enough before we arrived,” said Sansa. It wasn’t said jealously, but with a smirk.

 

“Sansa- you know that I like men as well as women, don’t you?” asked Oberyn, his voice serious. 

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “Of course.” She was a little worried now: why was he bringing this up? Was it over between them? Unconsciously she tightened her grip on him, not ready to let go.

 

“I enjoy laying with them, men and women, and you know this doesn’t mean I find you lacking in any way, don’t you?” His dark eyes were serious, his hand gentle as he stroked up her back. 

 

“Yes,” said Sansa. “Well, lacking a cock,” she said, trying to make a joke and snap out of her own anxiety. 

 

Oberyn’s lips twitched. “Trust me, princess,” he said, running one hand over the curls between her legs. “I like you exactly how you are. I just wanted to reassure you that you’ll be welcome in my bed for as long as you wish, because I’d like to take Daemon into my bed as well.”

 

Sansa nodded. They’d finally gotten to the point. “Do I need to- ah, as well?” she asked, nervously twisting the damp curls at the nape of Oberyn’s neck. 

 

“No, sweetheart. You sleep with whomever you wish.”

 

“Alright,” said Sansa, resting her head on Oberyn’s shoulder. “You had me worried.”

 

“I’m sorry, sweetling. I thought it would be better to over explain than make you worry.”

 

“Could I take a lover?” she asked on impulse. 

 

Ellaria laughed. “We’ve created a monster, my love. Even you aren’t enough!”

 

“Of course he is!” said Sansa, indignant on Oberyn’s behalf. “I was just wondering?”

 

“About whom, my sweet?” said Oberyn, nuzzling Sansa’s cheek. 

 

“Um-” She’d promised not to lie. “About Dyna,” she said in a near-whisper.

 

Ellaria laughed. “Oh, you owe me again!” she said, reaching for Oberyn’s other hand. 

 

“You knew?” asked Sansa, blushing and surprised. 

 

“You could hardly keep your eyes off each other for the first few weeks,” said Ellaria, cupping Sansa’s face and kissing her. 

 

On impulse, Sansa reached for Ellaria and gripped Oberyn tightly. “I love you,” she said, looking from one lover (mate, savior, family,  _ pack)  _ to the other. “I love you so much.”

 

Ellaria went teary and pulled Sansa to her. “I love you too,” she said. “I can’t imagine life without you any more.”

 

Oberyn cupped Sansa’s face and kissed her delicately, gently, then pulled back to rest his forehead on hers. “I love you too, princess. Thank you for being ours.”

 

They stayed in the water kissing until it became indecent to stay in public, so they wrapped themselves in bath sheets and ran for their rooms, where they got dirty all over again. 

 

~~~

  
The next day the muscles in Sansa’s thighs were sore, but she walked through the rain to the stables nonetheless. She had a heavy oilskin cloak and she’d bound her hair back in tightest braid she could manage. She’d noticed that she was used to the exercise and the release of tension, and she was more restless and irritable on days she skipped her ride. 

 

Sansa kissed Nel’s nose on her way by. Nel was the sweetest, and still saw plenty of sugar lumps from Sansa’s hand, but Oberyn had found Sansa a slightly more energetic and athletic mount. Her new mare’s name was Tsanta- ‘spice’, so named for her bay coat and playful nature. She and Sansa had reached an understanding: Tsanta would stand to be mounted and listen to Sansa’s subtlest request, and in exchange once a ride Sansa would give the horse her head and together they would fly over the sand. 

 

That morning they followed a wide trail of hoofprints out of the stable yard. Nobody was sparring, and Sansa wondered if they were doing some kind of horseback training. She trotted after them, ignoring the damp mist, enjoying the feeling of her muscles loosening as she moved. 

 

She crested a small dune and saw that a simple course had been set up. Two riders would start at opposite ends facing each other, rather like jousters. They’d ride their mounts in a gallop down a straightaway, weave the horse side to side through upright, flexible poles, jump a low log and then race to be the first rider to snatch a scarf off a spear in the center of the field. Sansa watched a few rounds as Tsanta shifted restlessly beneath her. 

 

She nudged Tsanta away after a few minutes and rode down to the shore where they galloped and chased the wind, Sansa’s hood blowing away from her face as she laughed, not feeling the cold. The soldiers were still out when she headed home, so she watched again: the sprint, the weave, the  _ jump…  _ and then the landing run to the scarf. 

 

Oberyn waved her down, and Sansa tried to just wave  _ goodbye!  _ But even from a distance she could see the stubborn set of his chin so she rode down the dune and around the crowd of two dozen men to Oberyn. 

 

“Would you like to try?” he asked, his face flushed. 

 

“I’d make a terribly boring opponent,” said Sansa. Tsanta and Brasa were used to each other by now, but the stallion still puffed air in Tsanta’s direction. 

 

“Then wait until we’re done,” said Oberyn. “Only two more to go.”

 

Daemon and a younger man faced each other from across the field. Sansa felt her own nerves thrumming, the excitement of the event getting to her. Someone whistled and the horses were off, their riders bent low. Daemon’s horse won the sprint, but his opponent was the first to weave through the poles. They looked neck-in-neck until the jump- Daemon’s big horse seemed to float through the air forever, landing lightly and then running flat out for the scarf- he grabbed it, whooping, and everyone else cheered. 

 

“Is this training, or for fun?” asked Sansa as some of the men headed back towards the Water Gardens. 

 

“Both,” said Oberyn. “Why do you always think learning must be boring? Have you not enjoyed all I’ve taught you?”

 

Sansa blushed and wished she could swat Oberyn like Ellaria did. People could hear him!

 

“Go on,” said Oberyn. “Try the course.”

 

“I’ve never jumped anything that high,” said Sansa. 

 

“It’s only a little taller,” said Oberyn. “Trust Tsanta, she is a skilled jumper.”

 

Sansa swallowed nervously as she trotted in an arc to line herself up with the course. Most of the men were gone, but she still took a deep breathe in, held it, and let it out-  _ whoosh-  _ before cuing the horse to run. 

 

Tsanta leapt forward and Sansa bent low over her horse’s neck, the reins in Sansa’s left hand. The first pole was coming up fast, and Sansa looked, shifted her weight and they were through. They missed the second pole, and Sansa gave up on the reins all together. This was faster, subtler, and she incrementally shifted her weight in the saddle and cued the horse with her calves- left, right, left, right again- they didn’t miss another pole and then the log was barreling towards them, the biggest jump Sansa had ever attempted, but she stayed bent over her horse’s neck and trusted Tsanta and with a huge bunching of muscles the mare sailed over the hurdle. She landed (wasn’t it amazing how gracefully a horse landed, all that muscle and body coordinated in perfect time?) and they were riding for the scarf. Sansa leaned, urging the horse on, and then the silk was in her fingers and she was laughing, crying, asking Tsanta to drop into a canter, then a trot, and returning to Oberyn, who was laughing with her.

 

They didn’t talk as they let their horses wander home, cooling down from the morning’s exercise. Sansa blinked back tears (would she  _ ever  _ stop crying at inopportune moments?) and by the time she was sliding off Tsanta in the stable yard Oberyn was there next to her.

 

She turned into Oberyn’s arms and he crushed her to his chest, her face pressed tight into the sandalwood-scented shadow of his throat. They didn’t need words for this- like Dyna and the dress on that very first day in Dorne, Oberyn had given something back to Sansa that she’d never thought to have again. She had  _ freedom _ ; as long as she could find a horse she’d never be an easy target. Her run through the course wasn’t perfect, and once upon a time the missed pole would have haunted Sansa because perfection was beauty and only true beauty could contain no flaws. Now Sansa knew, deep in her bones, that perfection was hollow, shallow attraction.

 

Real beauty was in the flaws. It was the girl who’d never learned a single thing to help keep herself alive learning to  _ fly  _ with a horse. Beauty was the messy, tangled pleasure of loving two people at the same time, with all the accidentally thrown elbows and messy kisses and sticky bits. Beauty was this moment in the stables, smelling of sweat and horse with people milling all around them. Beauty was the man in front of her, the man with the scars and the too-big nose, but perfect and beautiful in his mind, in his kindness, in his absolute passion for life. 

 

“I love you,” Sansa told him. 

 

“And I you, princess,” he said.

 

They broke apart, and Oberyn took Sansa’s hand. Daemon was leaning against the side of the barn politely looking away from Sansa and Oberyn, and as they passed he fell in on Sansa’s other side. 

 

“You did a good job,” he said. “Oberyn told me you’d never really ridden before coming here, and I didn’t believe him.”

 

“You’re flattering me,” said Sansa, still smiling. “But thank you.” She glanced up at Oberyn, who was looking at his second-in-command with soft eyes. On impulse she reached out and took Daemon’s hand, weaving her fingers through his. Oberyn’s lips ghosted over her cheek, and Sansa smiled up at the startled knight. 

 

“When in Dorne,” she said cheekily.  _ After all- what girl could pass up the chance to hold hands with  _ two  _ handsome men? _

 

When they walked into their solar Sansa called, “Ellaria, look what I’ve brought you!” 

 

Ellaria walked out of the bedchamber and her eyes widened. “Sansa, dearest, what are we going to  _ do  _ with this embarrassment of handsome manliness?”

 

“I’m going to leave that up to  _ you,”  _ said Sansa. “I’ve a mission of my own.” She walked forward, planted a loud, smacking kiss on Ellaria’s mouth, and then sashayed out of the room to the sound of Ellaria’s delighted laughter. 

 

Dyna was in Sansa’s chamber folding laundry and dusting the furniture. “Hello, lady,” she said, happy as ever. 

 

“Hello, Dyna,” she said. Sansa crossed to the washbasin and tugged off her clothes, eager to rinse off the sweat.

 

“Did you enjoy your ride?” 

 

“I did,” said Sansa, running a cloth down her arms, watching as Dyna’s eyes followed the movement of the washcloth. 

 

“Will you be spending time with Lady Ellaria today, or…?”

 

She let the question hang, and Sansa knew she was really asking,  _ Will you be dressing today, or will you be spending the afternoon naked and content? _

 

Sansa walked, still naked, to sit on her bed. “Well, not  _ with  _ Ellaria,” she said. “I was hoping to spend time with someone else.”

 

The maid walked to the wardrobe and reviewed the dresses within. “With Doran, perhaps?”

 

“Not Doran,” said Sansa. “Dyna- would you like to spend the afternoon with me?”

 

The maid turned and looked at Sansa, her eyes twinkling. “Would we maybe be… sewing?” she asked, coy. 

 

“No, not sewing,” said Sansa, catching on to the game. 

 

“Would we be… reading? Reviewing histories?”

 

“Not reviewing histories,” said Sansa, smiling and shaking her head. “Do you know what Daemon is doing right now?”

 

Dyna was smiling full-on, now, her teeth straight and white. “He is having the time of his life, lady.”

 

“Dyna- I was thinking maybe we could join them, you and I. Or we could just stay here, or you could go if you wish-” she hastened to add, not wanting the girl to think Sansa would force her. Oh gods, Sansa shouldn’t have-

 

Dyna walked across the room and gently pressed her lips to Sansa’s. “Lady, I would love nothing more,” she said. 

 

Sansa combed her fingers through Dyna’s long, dark hair. “Would you like to stay here?”

 

“Um…” Dyna bit her lip and looked at the ceiling. “I really, really want to go see Prince Oberyn and Lady Ellaria play with Daemon, but if you’d like-”

 

“No, I want that too,” said Sansa, rising. She took Dyna’s hand and walked to the door. “Let’s go play.”

 

Quickly they crossed the solar, Sansa still happily naked, and slipped into Ellaria and Oberyn’s chamber. Ellaria and Daemon were kneeling on the foot of the bed kissing each other while Oberyn stood, his hand between them, leisurely rubbing Ellaria’s cunt before moving to stroke Daemon’s cock, spreading Ellaria’s slick over the other man’s arousal. 

 

Dyna stood shocked, frozen by the absolutely beautiful, wanton scene before her. Sansa was slightly more used to this kind of thing, so she set about the task of undressing her new lover. Dyna’s dress tied at the nape of her neck, and when Sansa undid the linen she pressed a kiss there. Sansa pushed the fabric dress off Dyna’s breasts, and from there the material fell to the floor. 

 

“Dyna,” Sansa whispered. “We don’t need to-”

 

Dyna cupped Sansa’s face and kissed her. Sansa kissed back, licking and exploring, learning that Dyna’s top lip was slightly fuller than her bottom, that she tasted of blueberries, and that if Sansa moved to kiss beneath Dyna’s ear the other girl would give a full body shudder. Sansa  _ liked  _ that- with Ellaria and Oberyn Sansa felt like a novice septa worshipping at an altar  _ invented _ by her other lovers. With Dyna she felt more equal, and suddenly she wanted to make the girl shiver in other ways. 

 

Sansa led Dyna to the bed near the headboard. Dyna crawled to the center of the giant bed, and Sansa playfully swatted the other girl on the butt, earning a little  _ Eep!  _ Of surprised enjoyment. 

 

Sansa crawled over Dyna, straddling the other girl’s waist. She was enjoying this, this shivery hot newness and anticipation. She was also enjoying the way Dyna was delicately, carefully tugging and twisting Sansa’s nipples, sending little sparks of arousal into Sansa’s bloodstream. 

 

There was a slick sound from the other end of the bed and both girls looked over. Ellaria was lying on the end of the bed, her knees bent and toes on the floor. Daemon was crouched over her, worshipping her breasts with his mouth, his knees on either side of her hips and his arse in the air. Oberyn was standing between Ellaria’s knees, a little vial of something in his hand. He poured the oil over Daemon’s arsehole and was working it into the skin there- that was the slick noise Sansa and Dyna had noticed. It was incredibly dirty, the definition of hedonism.  Daemon was rocking back to Oberyn’s fingers, Oberyn was pressing kisses to the other man’s spine, and Daemon was nipping and sucking Ellaria’s breasts. Already Sansa could see love-bruises forming.

 

Dyna was rocking her hips under Sansa, completely absorbed in the act going on not two feet from her, and Sansa wanted her attention back.  She slid down and tugged one of Dyna’s nipples into her mouth, sucking and tugging and using just a hint of her teeth, and soon she had Dyna’s hips working in a smooth rhythm. 

 

Sansa had lost track of what was going on with the three at the end of the bed. She was absorbed in the taste of Dyna’s skin, in the way that Dyna’s breath hitched when Sansa did something new and delicious, in the tautness of her belly and the round curve of her hips. 

 

As Sansa slid off the bed to kneel between Dyna’s thighs she glimpsed Daemon between Oberyn and Ellaria. He was standing before Oberyn, bent at the waist with his head resting on Ellaria’s belly. His cock was hard and purple, jutting away from his belly, and Oberyn’s fingers were working  _ there,  _ in his arsehole.

 

It was scandalous and delicious but Sansa was on a mission. She kissed Dyna’s thigh gently before sliding her fingers through Dyna’s curls. She was wet and smelled of salt and sex, and her cunny was a different pink from Ellaria’s and Sansa’s. They were all different, Sansa supposed, and for one heady moment Sansa wondered if exploring someone dear and new was always like this, heady and arousing. 

 

“You’re so soft,” she half-whispered to Dyna, who bucked into Sansa’s fingers. 

 

Sansa stroked her fingers in and out of Dyna and around and around her pearl, watching with joy as Dyna grew wetter and wetter. 

 

Eventually Dyna moaned,  _ “Please,”  _ and Sansa had to give in and lean forward and taste her. 

 

Dyna groaned and Sansa licked, settling into that focused, nearly-animal rhythm of sucking and tongue-fucking, only focused on the task, as it were, at hand. She ignored the ache in her jaw and she ignored the way Dyna’s thighs had clasped around Sansa’s ears, because Dyna was getting ready to come apart beneath Sansa’s tongue. 

 

Dyna keened and shuddered and Sansa rubbed her own thighs together; she could feel her own slick beginning to pool between her legs. She wiped her face on the sheet before sliding up beside Dyna to give her a kiss and stroke her trembling breasts and belly. The girl smiled and thanked Sansa, turning so she could stroke down between Sansa’s legs. 

 

“You’re very good at that,” she said. 

 

“Thank you,” said Sansa, parting her knees a little to give Dyna’s fingers a better angle. “I’ve been wanting to do that for you.”

 

“Me too,” said Dyna. She pushed Sansa up against the pillows so that Sansa could watch Ellaria and Oberyn and Daemon, who were locked together in a slick, filthy chain. Daemon was inside Ellaria and Oberyn was inside Daemon; every time Oberyn rocked into Daemon’s arse he pushed the other man’s cock into Ellaria, fucking her by proxy, and it was the most sexual, filthy thing Sansa had ever seen. 

 

When Dyna bit Sansa’s nipple- not licked, not nibbled,  _ bit-  _ Sansa jumped and looked at her lover, who smiled innocently. “Just making sure you’re still with me,” she purred, moving to Sansa’s other tight, berry-red nipple. 

 

Sansa winnowed her fingers through Dyna’s hair, closed her eyes, and relaxed. She’d come just from this, once, early in the morning when she’d woken to Oberyn’s mouth on her teat. He’d sucked gently, insistently, and after Sansa didn’t know how long she’d come, still half asleep. Oberyn had been triumphant, and her nipples had tingled for the rest of the day. 

 

Dyna kissed her way down Sansa’s belly, pausing to suck a love-bite on Sansa’s hip, and then explored Sansa’s cunny much in the way that Sansa had explored hers. 

 

Daemon was groaning now, one hand jerkily circling in Ellaria’s cunt, the other fisted, white-knuckled, in the sheets. Oberyn was moving faster, and Daemon’s hips jerked as he moved seemingly to Oberyn’s commands, not his own. He groaned loudly when he came, his face pressed to Ellaria’s stomach, and Oberyn worked into him twice more before finding his own completion. 

 

Daemon whimpered as Oberyn slowly worked his way out of Daemon’s arse, but once Oberyn was loose Daemon dropped to his knees, ignored the seed sliding out of Ellaria, and licked her to her completion as well. 

 

That, in conjunction with Dyna’s tongue, had Sansa coming herself, sliding into the now familiar bliss and tingles. They lay together afterwards, everyone tangled together, not caring whose head was pillowed on which chest, holding any hand they could reach. It was warm and comfortable, and Sansa fell asleep, held warm and safe, trusting all around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID WARN YOU!
> 
> Okay, I updated the chapter count. This is the penultimate real chapter! Sansa's story is pretty much done. I have at least one porny epilogue planned, but I honestly am sexed out, as unbelievable as that is. I need a break! So stay subscribed if you're interested in seeing Asha take Sansa on a pleasure cruise... whenever it is I get to that. 
> 
> Again, sincerely, thank you to all who have supported me on this journey. It's been an absolute blast!! 
> 
> (By the way, since tumblr is lighting itself on fire, I'm on pillowfort now. If you have an account, look me up! I'm caseydoesfandom, and I'd love to be friends!)


	10. Home

Two days after that licentious afternoon with Oberyn and Ellaria and Daemon and Dyna Sansa woke up to a heavy, achy abdomen. It couldn’t be her moonblood; she’d had that two weeks ago. She padded to the privacy screen to pee, and when she did it  _ stung.  _

 

Her first thought was that she’d been poisoned. Her second thought was that  _ of course she hadn’t been poisoned,  _ she just needed a maester. She knew where Maester Caleotte’s chambers were; she’d passed them on her rambles. Sansa dressed quickly and hurried through the halls, hoping to be through with the maester before Oberyn missed her at the stables and came looking. 

 

Maester Caleotte was in his medicine room hanging herbs. Sansa walked in and then stood unsure, awkward and not sure what to say. 

 

The maester finished hanging a bundle of herbs in the window and stepped off the stool. He was short, nearly a head shorter than Sansa, and bald and round. His face was lined and hairless, and Sansa was relieved. He looked jolly, not like the painfully young maester in the Citadel. 

 

“How can I help you, lady?” he asked. 

 

Sansa awkwardly told the maester her symptoms, and he asked her to lie down on a bench so he could press on her stomach. 

 

“An infection of the bladder,” he declared. “Too much sex, yes?”

 

Sansa was blushing furiously; she could  _ feel  _ the heat radiating off her face. “I didn’t know that could happen,” she said, sitting up.

 

“Oh, yes.” He bustled around, getting a tiny vial from a locked cabinet. “You need to drink much water, at least six cups, and urinate after sex.”

 

“You can fix it?” asked Sansa, hopefully. She felt like she needed to pee again already. 

 

“Yes,” said the maester. He handed her a small vial. “You need to rest, to wash yourself there thoroughly twice a day, and to drink a special tea I will send up to you three times a day. No sexual activities for ten days at least, even if you feel better.”

 

Sansa nodded. Right now, the way she was feeling, she didn’t know if she’d ever want sex again. (She knew she would, but Sansa had relatively little experience with sickness. Injury, yes. Infection, no.)

 

“What’s this?” she asked, holding up the little vial.

 

“Dreamsleep,” he said. “Today and tomorrow, you must rest.”

 

That didn’t sound bad to Sansa. Maybe she’d be more comfortable asleep. “Should I come back for the tea?” she asked. 

 

“I’ll send it up, lady,” he said. “Is there anything more I can do?”

 

“No, thank you Maester,” said Sansa, sliding off the table. She rushed back to her room (thankful that Loreza and Dorea hadn’t arrived for their lessons) and quickly went to the chamber pot. After that she washed her cunny, poured one small drop of the dreamsleep onto a spoon, and swallowed it. 

 

Drowsily she removed her clothes and slipped between the covers of her bed. As she drifted off to sleep she heard the clatter of Loreza and Dorea rushing in, and Sansa smiled. 

 

She woke again to Oberyn and Ellaria looking at her with concern. 

 

“Maester Caleotte found me and sent me up with your tea. He gave me a  _ look,”  _ said Oberyn, “That told me he thought I was to blame for your discomfort.”

 

Sansa sat up, blushing furiously. “Thank you for bringing up the tea,” she said, taking the linen-wrapped bundle. 

 

Oberyn took it right back. “I’ll brew this,” he said. “It needs to be strong to be effective.”

 

Ellaria cuddled Sansa into her. “I’m sorry, sweet,” she said, kissing Sansa’s forehead. “We’ll take care of you.” 

 

They did. Oberyn made her the tea, three times a day, and Ellaria would feed Sansa broth and oranges and cranberries, which she swore would help. Sansa spent most of her time asleep, feeling loved and pampered but also restless, and on day four she woke up much refreshed. 

 

“I feel better,” she said when Oberyn arrived with her serving of the special tea. 

 

“You may feel better, but you aren’t fully healed,” he said. “Six more days before you can play.”

 

Now that Sansa felt better, six days sounded like a long time. She was used to pleasure- it was available at her fingertips, either hers or Ellaira’s or Oberyn’s. Then again- that’s how she’d gotten herself into this mess. 

 

On day five Sansa went for an easy ride on Tsanta, who was annoyed by the fact that she didn’t get to run. When Sansa returned to the stable she asked one of the boys to take her for a gallop before putting her away, and the boy was more than happy to comply. 

 

On day seven Sansa felt normal, and Oberyn and Ellaria decided her torture would begin. 

 

That night they undressed her, draped a washcloth over a desk chair, and sat Sansa down in it. Once there Oberyn used silk scarves to tie her knees to the legs of the chair, forcing her legs open. Then Ellaria and Oberyn undressed each other, pretending Sansa wasn’t there. 

 

She could  _ hear  _ them, she could  _ smell  _ them, but no matter how Sansa cajoled or begged Oberyn and Ellaria ignored her. 

 

Ellaria got on her knees to suck Oberyn’s cock, glancing up at him through her eyelashes just the way he liked. His fingers were in her dark curls and Sansa wanted to play, she wanted to take her turn with his prick, but instead she’d been tied off to the side. 

 

Ellaria’s head bobbed, and the slick sound of her mouth filled the room. Oberyn’s hand was cupping her head, guiding her closer to him, and Sansa knew how that felt, to have his weight heavy on her tongue, his salty bitterness in her mouth, his palm on her head like the most worthy of crowns. 

 

She wanted a turn. 

 

“Easy my love,” said Oberyn eventually, leaning away from Ellaria’s clever mouth. “Too quick, and this is over.”

 

Ellaria stood and shimmied a little, her breasts bouncing. “No, we don’t want this over quickly,” she said. She crawled to the center of the bed, facing Sansa, and Oberyn crawled up behind her. 

 

Sansa liked that position too- she wished she were in Ellaria’s spot, her face against the covers of the bed with her arse in the air. She always felt small like that, and desperate, and she could feel Oberyn’s pressed against her when he went inside so deeply. Thinking about it made her wet, and Sansa squirmed again, wishing that she could rub her cunt against the chair or her fingers or- anything! 

 

Oberyn and Ellaria were putting on a show, and they were milking it for everything they were worth. He’d wrapped her hair around his palm and was tugging her head back, forcing her spine into a beautiful arch. His other hand was on Ellaria’s hips, steadying her for his thrusts, and Sansa could hear the wet suck of her cunt against him. 

 

“You like this?” asked Oberyn, his voice dark enough to make a septa doubt her vows, his voice warm enough to ward off the sting of winter. 

 

“You know I do, my love,” purred Ellaira. “You know I love your cock in my cunt, deep and hot inside me. You know I love to be on my knees before you, my prince, my love. You know I could stay like this ‘till the world freezes over and the Stranger takes us all.”

 

Sansa could feel her mouth going dry as she panted, but she didn’t care.

 

Ellaria’s fingers were fisted in the bed covers now, and the force of Oberyn’s thrusts were slowly scooting her towards the edge of the bed. Her neck was still bent back and Sansa could see her swallow, could see her pant, could see the sweat beading in the hollow of her throat. 

 

“If our princess could join us?” asked Oberyn. “What would we do?” His eye were crinkled in a grin, and his jaw looked sharp enough to cut the skin on the inside of a woman’s thighs. 

 

“Mmm,” sighed Ellaria. “Right now she’d be beneath me, her arse on a pillow. I’d kiss her soft mouth, make her nipples red and hard, and you’d slide of her me and into her, and out of her and into me, and we would try to hold out, we  _ would,  _ but eventually one of us would finish and-”

 

Sansa was whimpering now, and Ellaria had to roll her back and groan as Oberyn worked into her harder, the muscles in his abdomen rippling. 

 

“And then I would lick her clean!” Ellaria yelled before pressing her face into the bedspread and moaning her way through orgasm. 

 

Oberyn wasn’t far behind: he came with a shudder, his jaw clenched, his hips shallowly thrusting.

 

They lay there panting, and Sansa panted with them, the muscles in her legs shaking because she was pulling against her bonds so tightly. Part of her couldn’t believe what was happening: she’d come so  _ far.  _ She’d let a man tie her to a chair, have sex with another woman in front of her, and she  _ liked it.  _ She felt ...small, like a beloved toy, but also understanding that this was just a delightful game. She’d be freed and cuddled at the first sign of distress, and that meant that she was safe to relax and enjoy this. 

 

Eventually her lovers dragged themselves from the bed to tidy up, and still they were beautiful. It wasn’t fair that Ellaria was curved and soft and as beautiful inside as she was on the outside. It wasn’t fair that Oberyn had the darkest eyes and the most infectious grin and a hard body that never,  _ ever  _ seemed to run out of energy. 

 

After the tidying was done Oberyn swaggered over to Sansa and touched the washcloth Sansa was sitting on with the most blatantly hedonistic expression that Sansa had yet to see on his face. 

 

“Mmm, we must not have put on enough of a show,” Oberyn said to Ellaria. “Still not wet through.”

 

_ Oh gods,  _ thought Sansa, all her remaining blood rushing out of her brain to pool in her cunt.  _ So that’s the game.  _ She wiggled, knowing that this still wouldn’t end in orgasm for her: she had two full days left. 

 

Ellaria dragged two chairs over and set them a few feet in front of Sansa’s own seat. She sat in one, Oberyn sat in the other. Ellaria had produced a long peacock feather from her wardrobe and she was twirling it almost lazily, not bothered by the nudity of her little group. 

 

“Sansa, princess, would you like us to tell you about all the things we have planned for when you’re well again?” Ellaria asked, still playing with the feather. 

 

“No,” said Sansa, sending Ellaria her very best  _ I am just an innocent maid,  _ look. 

 

Obern laughed, and Ellaria flicked the feather towards Sansa, the soft threads licking over her nipple. Sansa gasped, and Ellaria smirked. 

 

It didn’t  _ hurt.  _ It was a surprise, and a tingle, and then the feather was back on her skin and being slowly, lightly rubbed down one of her arms. 

 

“I did warn you,” said Oberyn, stretching those long legs of his out in front of him languidly. “That one day I would teach you the meaning of patience.”

 

“But-” said Sansa. She wasn’t allowed to play for another  _ two days.  _

 

“Listen to your prince, sweet,” said Ellaria. “Anticipation is half the fun.”

 

The feather was against Sansa’s other breast, and she flicked it again so the peacock eye landed right over Sansa’s nipple. 

 

Sansa tried not to make a noise, which failed, and came out as a very unladylike  _ ungh.  _

 

“I’ll go first,” said Ellaria, moving the tip of the feather to Sansa’s thigh. “When you’re well, I think I’ll take you down to the pools- you do like them, don’t you dearest? And we’ll swim, warm and slippery, and then- if you ask me politely, which of course you will; you can do your favorite thing.”

 

Sansa thought about Ellaria’s cunny, the familiar tang of her arousal, and how it always had Sansa dripping by the time Ellaria came. She was always how proud of her wet face when she was through, because it was proof that she could make Ellaria feel as good as Ellaria made her. 

 

“But love,” said Oberyn, interrupting Sansa’s thoughts. “That wouldn’t do for our poor deprived girl.”

 

“Hmm?” asked Ellaria, and the feather flicked again. 

 

“No,” said Oberyn, his voice down to a low purr. “I think we should take the finest silks and wrap them around her wrists, her pretty ankles, and tie her to our bed. Surely she’ll be ready for us by then, after waiting  _ so long  _ like a good girl should.”

 

Sansa found herself nodding. She was good, she was, and she could be oh so  _ very  _ good for what Oberyn was describing. 

 

“First, we would play with her breasts- so high, and soft, aren’t they lovely girl?”

 

Sansa could feel her nipples tingling, hardening into even tighter points, and she would have  _ cried  _ just to have Ellaria or Oberyn take one into their mouths. 

 

“She would come from that, because she is  _ such  _ a sensitive princess,” Oberyn continued. “Then we play with her little clit, that pearl, and- how many, do you think?” he asked Ellaria. 

 

Ellaria looked up theatrically, thinking. “Three,” she said. 

 

“After she’s wailed out her pleasure three times, when her womb is clenching and empty and even the slightest touch is too much- then I fill her,” he said. 

 

Sansa could feel her cunny tighten, bereft and empty. She needed, she  _ needed,  _ her cunt ached and her nipples twanged and her mouth was open and panting. 

 

“You’d need to go slow,” said Ellaria. “She’d need to feel each stroke, to revel at being filled and to mourn being empty.”

 

“Of course,” said Oberyn, and Sansa closed her eyes and moaned, hanging against the bonds. 

 

She couldn’t believe that she’d chosen this, but at the same time, she couldn’t believe that this was kind of - well, fun. 

 

“Oh, I think we’re onto something,” said Ellaria, and this time when the peacock feather ever-so-lightly glanced over Sansa’s clit it came away visibly wet. 

 

“Mmm,” Oberyn hummed. 

 

“You know,” said Ellaria conversationally. “It’s nearly a sin to keep her here for only us; such beauty and skill of the gods should be shared.”

 

“You know what happened when she came to the pools with you,” said Oberyn. “One man cut off his sparring partner’s ear after that.”

 

“It’s a risk I think we should take,” said Ellaria in a mummer’s stoic tones. “Wouldn’t she be breathtaking on the marble of the pools? Shouldn’t everyone get to see her face flush that shade of pink; shouldn’t everyone admire the color of her cunt?”

“The whores would walk bowlegged, after,” said Oberyn, and Ellaria laughed while Sansa whimpered at their words, at the  _ wrongness,  _ at the lulling melody of flirtation and desire. 

 

Ellaria and Oberyn were still grinning at each other when they heard it: the gentle  _ plink  _ of something dripping; Sansa had finally soaked through the fine linen draped over her chair. It was her arousal that had almost delicately dripped onto the cool tile floor. 

 

“Oh you  _ are  _ such a good girl,” said Ellaria. 

 

Sansa blushed scarlet. She didn’t think she’d survive two more days of this, let alone the final consummation but- to all of their relief- she did. And they let her out of the bed after only two days. 

 

~~~

 

Sometimes Sansa slept in Oberyn and Ellaria’s bed, and sometimes she slept it her own. It was nice to crawl under her cool covers when she was exhausted, or when she was so well-fucked it felt like she was walking bowlegged. Oberyn still woke Sansa for her morning rides, even with the near-constant winter rain, but now that his body was as familiar to her as her own (more familiar, in some ways), he could wake her up in more creative ways. 

 

Some mornings he would slide under the covers and toy with her nipples until she woke wet and needy. Some mornings he would whisper to her, sweet poems or comments on her beauty, and she would wake to declarations of love. Other mornings he would kiss her, or tickle her, but this- this was her favorite way to wake. 

 

It was cool outside her cocoon of red and orange blankets, and Oberyn’s arms were warm around her. One was beneath Sansa’s ear, the other hooked around her waist, and her back was pressed against his chest. The tip of his cock was in her, teasing her, and outside the shuttered window the day was beginning, soft lavender and grey. 

 

Her role, in these moments, was to stay as still as she could and to absorb Oberyn’s attentions the way a flower absorbs rain: as sustenance, trusting that more will always come.  

 

“There are so many things,” Oberyn whispered in her ear, “So many things I would like to try with you, but this, princess- when you’re soft and warm, and trusting, and mine- this may be my favorite.”

 

He claimed many, many things as his favorites, but Sansa didn’t mind. She wouldn’t be able to choose, either. 

 

His fingers were winnowing through her cunt lips as slowly as a sunrise, and Sansa was content now to let her pleasure come to her instead of trying to ride it to ground. Oberyn’s hips rocked, and his fingers explored, and he whispered the softest things to her- her strength, her bravery, her kindness and gentleness and heart. 

 

“I love you,” she whispered as she crested, brilliant as the sun. 

 

“I love you,” he echoed, and the day began with radiance and gratitude. 

 

The lay together even as the sun rose, and Sansa lazed in bed when Oberyn got up to wash and dress and fetch them a tray. 

 

How was this her life? How had she found herself here where the land was never obscured by snow and a woman would never be reviled for the circumstances of her birth?

 

How had she let a man into her bed again? How was she content, and happy, and trusting, despite all that had happened?

 

Oberyn came back in, tray in hand, and when he smiled at her she knew: she loved him, a love that she trusted in  _ itself,  _ for here were Ellaria and Oberyn and she wanted them when she was homesick, when they were ill, when the children were annoying or when Sansa’s feet ached.  

 

He pulled her onto his lap and arranged the tray next to him. Together they ate preserved oranges on toast and eggs with the yolks still runny. All the while as they munched Sansa’s moon tea had been steeping, growing cool and potent and bitter, and Oberyn passed her the cup casually, as he had countless mornings before. 

 

Sansa took the cup from him, and the kilned clay was warm on her fingers. The liquid inside was dark, and Sansa knew how it would taste: of vinegar and dark roots and mustiness that would never see the light of day. 

 

Once it had tasted of salvation. Now-

 

She set the cup back on the wooden tray and continued looking at it. 

 

“Princess?” Oberyn asked. “Do you want me to heat it again?”

 

Sansa looked at him: her dark-haired lover, the opposite of everything she’d dreamed of as a girl; the only man who was exactly what she needed. 

 

“No,” said Sansa. “No, I don’t need it heated.”

 

Oberyn’s intense eyes narrowed, and Sansa could feel a smile growing on her face, her grin as unstoppable as the changing of the seasons. 

 

“Are you sure?” Oberyn whispered. “The decision is always yours.”

 

“I know,” said Sansa, gently rubbing her lips over his. “And that’s why I can make it.”

 

His fingers winnowed through her love-tangled hair, cradling her head in his hand. 

 

“If we had a child,” said Sansa, and  _ oh  _ her heart fluttered at the idea of his dark-eyed daughters- “If  _ I  _ had a child, and one day I needed to return north…”

 

“I would watch you go,” said Oberyn, his voice thick. “And I would count the days until you returned, or until I could come to you.”

 

“Just like that?” asked Sansa as the tea cooled and her heart thudded.

 

“No,” said Oberyn, and now his fingers were tugging her hair in the  _ pleasurepain _ Sansa loved best. “Not just like that. I want you, Sansa, from this day until the end of my days. But if you needed to go- it’s your decision, my love.”

 

“And I’ve made my decision,” she said, picking up the tray and dropping it over the side of the bed. She ignored the clatter of crockery and the splash of unconsumed moon tea and pressed herself tightly to this wonderful, perfect man.

 

“Welcome home, my love,” said Oberyn as he rolled onto her back. “Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. My impulse-written fic is finally done, and it's time to say goodbye. I've spent a few extra days trying to come up with an ending that satisfies me, and ... well, it's time to let it go. Nothing is ever going to perfect, just like nobody is ever perfect, and I honestly think that that is what makes life interesting. 
> 
> Thank you to who all who supported this story! I'm honestly still surprised that this strange, porny, rare-pair fic was enjoyed by so many people! Every comment and kudos is/was appreciated. This is the only way I get paid for the work I put in! 
> 
> Housekeeping: I still plan to return here to write that Asha/Sansa pleasure cruise, so stay subscribed if you're interested in seeing that sometime in the spring. I've also started a fandom [twitter](https://twitter.com/caseydoesfandom), and I hope you'll come hang out with me there! (I'm also caseydoesfandom over on pillowfort!)
> 
> PS. (May 2019): I wrote this story during the Kavanaugh hearings. I needed to tell myself that there was somewhere in the world that women would be safe and independent and respected, and for me, that place was Dorne. Now we have half a dozen states taking away women's rights to an abortion, and this story feels more relevant than ever. If you're in one of those states, I love you. Let's keep fighting.


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